[lit-ideas] Re: Thai King Dies
- From: "Donal McEvoy" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "donalmcevoyuk" for DMARC)
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2016 19:14:30 +0000 (UTC)
....the Thai king himself. (Who incidentally, unlike Anscombe, McGuiness,
"etc", was not a Catholic -- so McEvoy's implicature that Witters's theology
has a direct appeal to Catholics seems to collapse).>
This is illogical. First there is nothing to show the Thai King was
Wittgensteinian or that W's work had any direct appeal to him. Second, even if
the first were shown, it would not mean W's work did not have a direct appeal
to (certain kinds of) Catholic (also). [I never claimed W's appeal was
exclusively to Catholics - still less a certain type of them.]
Back to sleep.
DL
From: "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, 14 October 2016, 18:52
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Thai King Dies
We are considering the proposition of the header, to wit:
i. Thai king dies.
under a Wittgensteinian interpretation. To paraphrase Wittgenstein's commentary
on death as it applies to the Thai king, we would have:
"Death [was] not an event in [the] life [of the Thai king]." More generally, we
-- the Thai king included -- do not live to experience death. If we take
eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, eternal life
belongs to those who live in the present -- as we hope the case with the Thai
king is. Our life, including the Thai king's life, has no end in the way in
which our visual field has no limits."
McEvoy takes issue:
"If we didn't know this was Wittgenstein and so strained to make sense of this
so it was valid, we would surely find it slippery in the extreme."
This seems ad-hominem. Of course, Grice says that ad-hominems are okay
('especially when I'm the man'). Recall Austin,
ii. Witters is liked by some, but Moore's MY man.
The implicature being that Witters _is_ a man, and thus a possible target of an
'ad hominem' (Latin for 'to the man').
Helm is fascinated by the ladder trope in the Tractatus. If McEvoy is right,
this is a slippery ladder, too!
McEvoy goes on to see if this applies to the recently deceased Thai king:
"We 'do experience our death' often enough:"
Barbara Crossette found it difficult for the royal palace to tell her that the
king had died -- "He died at Siriraj Hospital, but the royal palace gave no
further details."
Surely, if Oakeshott is right in "The modes of experience," we would expect the
best account of the alleged 'experience of death,' to paraphrase McEvoy's
paraphrase of Witters, to be by the Thai king himself. (Who incidentally,
unlike Anscombe, McGuiness, "etc", was not a Catholic -- so McEvoy's
implicature that Witters's theology has a direct appeal to Catholics seems to
collapse).
There seems to be a Popperian problem with McEvoy's "often enough": either we
experience our death ALLWAYS or 'never', as Witters prefers. It would be otiose
that we sometimes ('often enough') do and oftentimes don't. But I grant that
"often enough" may DISIMPLICATE 'always':
iii. Thai kings often enough experience their death; in fact, they always do.
McEvoy goes on:
"though while we are alive we don't experience being dead, we may experience
'dying' (right up to the point of being dead)"
Oddly, I can share Crossette's experience of being disappointed by the royal
palace telling her that the king died in the Siriraj Hospital. Surely she was
looking for something more 'experiential' in nature.
McEvoy:
"and if we experience being dead, we may even experience the crossover from
life to death."
In Thai theology of the afterlife, this may invite the wrong implicature.
McEvoy goes on to refudiate Witters's 'slippery' ladder:
"It is wrong that "eternal life" arises from living in the present - it arises
from living eternally."
McEvoy seems to be positing that as 'analytic a priori,' by means of conceptual
analysis of "eternal life," and I agree with this positing. I suggest, in the
same vein, that Witters is trying to convince us (or whomever reads the
Tractatus) to take his opening remark, "Death is not an event in our life," in
the same light, as analytic, tautological, and arrived via conceptual analysis.
"Dying," may be an event of Wittgenstein's life -- vide the long section
"Wittgenstein's Death" in Monk's bio of the man.
McEvoy concludes:
"Lastly, our visual field has limits - this points up the inescapable sense in
which our life has its limits, and living in the present doesn't allow us to
escape them."
Perhaps Wittgenstein was a closet Thai theologian. But this may invite, again,
the wrong implicature.
As Geary has noticed, religion in Thailand is varied. There is no official
state religion in the Thai constitution, which guarantees religious freedom for
all Thai citizens, but, again as Geary points out, the king is required by law
to be Theravada Buddhist.
And so perhaps Wittgenstein was a closet Theravada Buddhist, too.
The main religion practiced in Thailand is, as the law makes it clear, is
Buddhism (it would be otiose to require by law that the king be a Theravada
Buddhist, if Buddhism were not popular there). But, as Geary notes, there is a
strong undercurrent of Hinduism with its distinct priestly class.The large Thai
Chinese population also practices Chinese folk religions, including Taoism. The
Yiguandao (Thai: Anuttharatham) has spread in Thailand and it has grown so much
in recent decades to come into conflict with Buddhism; it is reported that each
year 200,000 Thais convert to the religion, to the king's dismal. Many other
people, especially among the Isan ethnic group, practice Tai folk religion. A
significant Muslim population, mostly constituted by Thai Malays, is present
especially in the southern regions. And there are at least four Anglicans.
In "The philosophy of death," (Unpublications, Folder 67), H. P. Grice attemps
a conceptual analysis of propositions like (i) -- and 'ordinary language'
vernaculars, "kicked the bucket," "joined the featherly choir," "is fertilizing
the daffodils," "is helping the grass to grow."
Grice notes that defining death, i.e. providing a conceptual analysis for
propositions like (i) is one thing; providing criteria by which it can be
readily detected or verified is another.
"Funny, no?"
A definition is an account of what death is_is_; when, and only when its
definition is met, death has necessarily occurred.
A criterion for death, by contrast, lays out conditions by which all and only
actual deaths -- including that of the Thai king -- may be readily identified.
Such a criterion falls short of a definition, but plays a pretty practical
role. ("Where 'pretty' is adverbial," Grice adds).
For example, it would help physicians and jurists -- "such as my friend, H. L.
A. Hart" -- determine when death has occurred.Some places have adopted criteria
for death modeled on the Uniform Determination of Death Act which says that “an
individual who has sustained either
(1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or
(2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the
brain stem, is dead.
A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical
standards.”
In the United Kingdom, just to be different, the accepted criterion is brain
stem death, or the “permanent functional death of the brain stem”. (This may be
one reason why Grice decided to die in Berkeley, California -- He actually
ended dying in San Francisco).These current criteria are subject to criticism,
even if we put aside reservations concerning the qualifier ‘irreversible’.
Animalists, such as Popper was not, might resist the criteria since the vital
processes of human beings whose entire brains have ceased to function can be
sustained artificially using cardiopulmonary assistance.
Mindists (such as Popper and Eccles were) and personists might also resist the
criteria, on the grounds that minds and all psychological features can be
destroyed in human beings whose brain stems are intact.
For example, cerebral death can leave its victim with an intact brain stem, yet
mindless and devoid of self-awareness.
There is an English adage, "The king is dead; long live the king". The adage
does not have a Thai equivalent.
Speranza
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