[lit-ideas] Re: The Compressor Shorted To Ground
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:54:06 EST
"It gets tedious trying to tell a customer why his compressor shorted to
ground when he doesn't know what a compressor is or does or what shorted
means."
----
Thanks L. K. Helm.
But wait, I don't mean to offend Geary. Philosophers are worse!
---- In any case, (i) I didn't get the explanation of the little
screwdriver, but I'll re-read it
More importantly, rereading Geary's post (above) one notices the
philosophical
*why*
-- which, as Piaget has explained to us, is constitutive of the
developmental process of truth-functional logic.
Geary had written:
"It [does] get[...] [very] tedious [to] try[...]
to tell a customer _why_ [my emphasis. JLS] his
compressor shorted to ground when he [or worse, she.
JLS] doesn't know what a compressor is or does
[important distinction here, ontological versus
teleo-functional] or what shorted means [more like
a semantics question]."
Indeed, I am reminded of how brilliantly I got my A+
in Ethics, when I recited R. M. Hare's paper in the Philippa Foot
collection, along with Geach's reply.
[It was, alas, a Spanish version --]. In any case
Geach and Hare are discussing words ending in
-or, like compressor, etc.
Geach's, or I think Hare's, point is that
(1) This is a good compressor.
is something that we _can_ understand _even_ if
(2) Utterer does not know what a compressor is
or does.
So that would leave Geary with less tiredeness.
For the 'customer' (or 'person' as I prefer) need
_not_ know what a compressor is to realise that
the one she has is "no longer good".
Now, with 'shorted [to ground], I would also
appeal to the innateness hypothesis in Chomsky,
and say that 'to short to ground' is to 'diminish
in size, in a compressory sort of way.
The thing is, Geary comes out as somewhat irreverent
by comparing his technical problems in _justifying_
a 'why' question that I believe is _not_ motivated
for the Thalesian purity of learning who Physis
works, but more as a justification for, to echo
Walter, some propreptic action (on the part of
the customer).
Cheers,
JL
Buenos Aires, Argentina
**************************************Check out AOL's list of 2007's hottest
products.
(http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001)
Other related posts:
