[lit-ideas] Re: Misreading
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:28:53 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Tue, 25/8/09, David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "In The
> Alchemist, Paulo Coelho writes, "At a certain point
> in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us,
> and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the
> world's greatest lie."
But the world doesn't tell lies, genes are not selfish etc. This is a fallacy
involving attributing intentional states to objects that cannot have them. It
is entirely beside the point that we know this and mean something less
literal:- perhaps that the biggest deception of which we might convince
ourselves by living is that we lack any control of our lives or that genetic
material can be understood as succeeding despite the selection pressures it
faces by its having a 'selfish' strategy that maximises its replication. Mary
Midgely was not fooled.
Donal
Speaking up for the silent Wittgensteinian
Mind-Your-Grammar School of Thinking
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