[lit-ideas] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjcwLAMmMzU
- From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 08:23:43 +0200
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjcwLAMmMzU
On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 7:35 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> D. P. Henry notes that a mediaeval philosopher said something like, "By
> necessity, nothing must be nothing", which Henry claims is like the
> predecessor of Heidegger's claim.
>
> O.K.: Does "Das Nicht nichtet" simply mean "nothing is nothing" ?
>
> Well, if Henry is right that there is some deductive system in which "The
> Nothing noths" becomes a logical truth, we may find this conclusion as
> being
> yielded by premises and axioms in the system which are the logical
> correlates of 'rules of grammar'.
>
> O.K.: On the above reading, the mysterious Henry is surely right. There
> is such a logical system, and it's called tautology.
>
> Well, I do think Heidegger was illustrating 'annihilation' and nihilism,
> and came up with "The Nothing noths" as a good adage to abbreviate that way
> of looking at things.
>
> O.K.: Here I would like to see some further clarification. (Or perhaps
> simply clarification) What is "nihilism" and how is it illustrated by the
> above truism ?
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2015 at 12:09 AM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
> DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> O. K. writes:
>>
>> "[S]urely it is possible to argue that certain statements that purport to
>> be metaphysical are actually nonsense without making the sweeping claim
>> that they all are. Neither is it necessary to posit the criterion of
>> empirical
>> verifiability for statements to be meaningful as the positivists did. (It
>> might be argued that statement has to be meaningful in at least some
>> sense
>> in order for us to be able to tell whether it expresses an empirically
>> verifiable proposition.) Here are some of the possibilities: A statement
>> in
>> metaphysics [a metaphysical statement, proposition] may have at least
>> three
>> values: 1. It may be nonsense -- i.e. an undefined combination of words.
>> (Of
>> course this might be the value of a statement in any subject, not just
>> philosophy.)"
>>
>> Well, this seems to be Carnap's and Ayer's view re:
>>
>> Heidegger
>>
>> i. The Nothing noths.
>>
>> or
>>
>> ii. The nothing noths.
>>
>> D. P. Henry notes that a mediaeval philosopher said something like, "By
>> necessity, nothing must be nothing", which Henry claims is like the
>> predecessor of Heidegger's claim.
>>
>> Henry does not find the verb 'noth' nonsensical at all. And his use of the
>> "[[ ... ]]" is meant to provide a corresponding verb for any noun ('noth'
>> for 'nothing'). We are familiar with that from Quine, "Pegasus
>> pegasises".
>>
>> "2. It may be a disguised rule of grammar (PP p. 312) -- rather than the
>> statement of fact ("real definition") its author the metaphysician
>> intends it
>> to be."
>>
>> Well, if Henry is right that there is some deductive system in which "The
>> Nothing noths" becomes a logical truth, we may find this conclusion as
>> being
>> yielded by premises and axioms in the system which are the logical
>> correlates of 'rules of grammar'. So "The nothing noths" fits here too.
>>
>> "3a. It may be a suggestive picture -- i.e. one that suggests images to
>> us,
>> but that takes us no further. The proposition 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun'
>> illustrated by "a grandfather clock which points to 5" (PI§ 350), and
>> maybe
>> the "questions without answers", are examples of these. Many such
>> pictures
>> give a false account of the way we use some "sign" or other of our
>> language -- i.e. they are a mistaken understanding of the sign's
>> "grammar" (The
>> distinction between a sign and its use in the language), e.g. the word
>> 'mind'
>> as the name of an invisible object."
>>
>> Well, this applies perfectly to
>>
>> "The Nothing noths".
>>
>> Henry spends some time discussing Lewis Carroll's
>>
>> "Nobody runs faster than me".
>> "That's not true," said the King, "or he had come here earlier".
>>
>> "3b. Or it may be a way of looking at things -- i.e. speculation that is
>> not subject to falsification by anomaly. (Note that some scientific
>> theories
>> are also ways of looking at things -- that is, ways of summarizing
>> [organizing] a selected set of data [Every scientific theory is facts
>> plus
>> imagination] -- that are not falsifiable, e.g. the heliocentric and
>> geocentric
>> models of the solar system.) Of course it may also simply be an idle
>> picture --
>> although note well that metaphysicians know that their pictures cannot be
>> compared with "perceptible reality" -- i.e. that their metaphysical
>> propositions are not empirical propositions -- and therefore it does not
>> trouble
>> them that their speculative propositions cannot be verified or tested by
>> experience. For, metaphysics says, "Our experience is only experience of
>> appearances, not of reality itself"; cf. Plato's cave image (Republic
>> 515c).
>> Which statement may be an example of senses (2) or (3a) of the word
>> 'metaphysics'."
>>
>> Well, I do think Heidegger was illustrating 'annihilation' and nihilism,
>> and came up with "The Nothing noths" as a good adage to abbreviate that
>> way
>> of looking at things.
>>
>> "Some religious pictures may resemble these "idle pictures", because they
>> also are not hypotheses; however, pictures in religion are used very
>> differently from the way metaphysicians use pictures, e.g. they are not
>> speculative. 3c. Or it may be a picture that it is "logically
>> impossible" for us to
>> be taught how to apply: "How is this picture, e.g. Michelangelo's God
>> creating Adam (LC, p. 63), to be compared with what it is said to be a
>> picture
>> of?" But there is no answer -- i.e. the word 'compare' is not defined in
>> this
>> particular case; indeed, the artist did not intend for a comparison to be
>> made."
>>
>> Well, there are some paradoxes associated with "Nothing" that Henry
>> considers:
>>
>> iii. Nothing taught me to fly.
>>
>> iv. No-thing taught me to fly.
>>
>> was a well-known sophisma. Henry notes that the best answer to the sophism
>> is: "Well, then: show us how you fly".
>>
>> The references to 'signs' is apt in that 'nihil' was much discussed by
>> mediaeval philosophers as a 'sign' of some second imposition, and not a
>> real
>> name. And so on.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Speranza
>>
>>
>>
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>
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