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

From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 14:06:29 +0000
You are wrong all along, possible worlds are not temporal in any way. Precisely 
because God is the choice making entity, god surveys all of them precisely at 
the same specious instant (known to the unwashed as ‘creation’.)
Best


From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On 
Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 24 February 2015 12:02
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mit mir nur rat ich, red ich zu dir

If a different world came into existence, Leibnitz could say one of the 
following:

a. Either the new world is no better than the old one

b. Or, if the betterness of the new world is overwhelming, he could say that 
this world has now become possible and previously wasn't possible. It is now 
this world that is "the best of all possible worlds."

Either way, he hasn't been refuted.

O.K.

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:33 AM, Adriano Palma 
<Palma@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
The same argument applies the form.
Such considerations can’t be held against my view since ain’t mine.
best

From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>] 
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 24 February 2015 11:14
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mit mir nur rat ich, red ich zu dir

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<mailto: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<mailto: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> 
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>] 
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 24 February 2015 10:08
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Reading Heidegger

See you soon.

Omar

On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 6:33 PM, <cblists@xxxxxxxx<mailto: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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[lit-ideas] : Mit mir nur rat ich, red ich zu dir

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