[lit-ideas] Re: Mit mir nur rat ich, red ich zu dir

  • From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 11:31:41 +0200

that is fine. I  give up

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 11:14 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>  Leibnitz does not say that this world is the only possible world but
> that it is "the best of all possible worlds." Hence the claim is not
> refuted by showing that other worlds are possible. On the other hand, he
> also does not say that it is the best of all imaginable worlds, hence he is
> not refuted by showing that better worlds can be imagined.
>
>  O.K.
>
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> It hasn't been claimed, on my part, that all metaphysical statements are
>> unfalsifiable. There is a logical and practical difference between 'some'
>> and 'all.' Among those some that are unfalsifiable we find "Das Nicht
>> nichtet," which on a charitable reading turns out to be tautological and
>> hence irrefutable, and "There are natural laws" which is a positive
>> existential statement and hence unfalsifiable.
>>
>>  Leibnitz's claim that the existing world is the best of all possible
>> worlds *may* be falsifiable or refutable but presumably this cannot be done
>> by exposing the evil in the world, as Voltaire does in Candide, because
>> these are empirical and not metaphysical observations. It is not clear
>> though what is meant by "the best" and whether this is not too subjective
>> an evaluation to be refuted.
>>
>>  O.K.
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>  Two claims were made to the effect that metaphysical statements are
>>> “useless”, “senseless”, or according to some “non falsifiable”, the
>>> silliest ones are those who claim that there is some “violation” of maxims,
>>> grammars and assorted junk.
>>>
>>> So, consider an easy case, which arguably is beyond doubt metaphysical.
>>>
>>> Leibniz claimed, actually, twice, that the actual world is the best of
>>> any particular other one and of the totality of possible worlds not
>>> severally taken.
>>>
>>> (you have traces in monadology and in the version of theocidees)
>>>
>>> Now can this be falsified? I fail to see why not. In fact there are two
>>> wasy.
>>>
>>> 1.     Is historical, namely take a time slice of actuality, fix one
>>> parameter of what you take improvement and you get an order of goodness
>>> out of it, hence the actual world or wold slice is not the best
>>>
>>> 2.     Deny that goodness is anywhere, hence *all* worlds are equally
>>> bad or good since such moral predicates do not apply to any one of the
>>> possible world
>>>
>>> 3.     The cheap shot approach (Candide): there is Heidegger,
>>> earthquakes, hitler, lady gaga hence there can be a world devoid of
>>> Heidegger, lady gaga since it is not inconsistent to eliminate
>>> buttmann/Heidegger, his wife, his children, lady gaga, his students,
>>> imbecils assorted und so weiter. Hence the actual is not the best, we can
>>> have betterments.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> We have both truth conditions and possible refutations.
>>>
>>> Now immediately will be told that the “best of all” is not a
>>> metaphysical statement, there you’ll see immediately the deep profound
>>> mental bankruptcy of these so called theories with “language maxims”
>>> “criteria of rationality” and similar anglo teutonic junk.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
>>> lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *Omar Kusturica
>>> *Sent:* 24 February 2015 10:08
>>> *To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>> *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Reading Heidegger
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> See you soon.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Omar
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 6:33 PM, <cblists@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> One of the best things that I have read about Heidegger's 'obscurity' is
>>> the following:
>>>
>>> "Then again, there is the matter of Heidegger's famous 'obscurity',
>>> which would seem to require that special comment be made upon him.  A great
>>> deal of this 'obscurity' is a matter of translation, and disappears when
>>> Heidegger is read in German.  To be sure, his German is at times a very
>>> highly individualized vehicle of expression: Heidegger does coin his own
>>> terms when he has to, and usually these are coinings that stick very close
>>> to the etymological roots of German.  Heidegger thinks very much within the
>>> matrix of the German language, and his expressions hugs the particularity
>>> of this language to its bosom.  All of this makes for difficulty in
>>> translation . . . .  [I]f we compare Heidegger with two classical German
>>> philosophers, like Kant or Hegel, his sentences are remarkably compact and
>>> incisive, his expression notably terse.  Very often, in reading Hegel, we
>>> get the feeling . . . that the philosopher is deliberately willing to be
>>> obscure.  One never gets this impression from Heidegger: he is struggling
>>> to communicate, and his command of his own means of communication is
>>> powerful and impressive.  The difficulty comes, rather, from the obscurity
>>> of the matter with which Heidegger is grappling.
>>>
>>> "That there are obscure matters at all in our experience is a contention
>>> that rubs against the prejudice of some positivistic philosophers that
>>> whatever cannot be said clearly and distinctly cannot be said at all and
>>> the effort to say it can only result in 'meaningless' verbalism.  Every
>>> philosopher, in this view, ought to be able to express himself with the
>>> simple-minded clarity of, say, Bertrand Russell.  and if the philosopher
>>> does not do this, it is a clear sign of intellectual incompetence.  All
>>> this, of course, is oversimplified psychologizing.  A philosopher may be
>>> quite capable of mastering one or the other of the clear and distinct
>>> dialects of philosophy and bouncing the ball of dialectic deftly back and
>>> forth across the net; but he may be drawn by other subject matters into
>>> following a quite different path in philosophy.  From the point of view of
>>> a philosopher like Heidegger there are parts of our experience that
>>> ordinary language finds itself hard put to express, if it can express these
>>> matters at all; indeed, this ordinary language seems to have been formed
>>> out a kind of conspiracy to cover over or forget these parts of experience
>>> altogether."
>>>
>>> - William Barrett in his introduction to the 'Phenomenology and
>>> Existentialism' section of William Barrett and Henry D. Aiken, eds.,
>>> _Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: An Anthology_, (New York: Random
>>> House, 1962); Vol. 3, pp. 152-3.
>>>
>>> I can attest to Barrett's claims about reading Heidegger 'in the
>>> original', and indeed would go farther than he does. I do not claim that
>>> one cannot come to some understanding of Heidegger's thought, or critique
>>> his views in interesting and insightful ways, without reading him in
>>> German.  But I will say categorically and unequivocally: if you have not
>>> read Heidegger in German, you have not read Heidegger.
>>>
>>> - Chris Bruce
>>> Kiel, Germany
>>> --
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>


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