[lit-ideas] Re: tense
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2015 11:59:16 +0000 (UTC)
>Donal orech-din.Donal is a lawyer.>
Surely, after the recent exodus, we've all seen enough of the dangers of
abusive language.
Dnl
On Tuesday, 3 March 2015, 10:35, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
1. There is a way to express a more or less analogous message but I doubt that
it would be very effective as a slogan
2. Not sure that this is correct. Islamic theology has concerns with what God
is like; for Al-Ghazali, he is powerful, merciful, living, posesses language
etc. The arguments in medieval Islamic culture between the orthodox theologians
(Ghazali) and the philosophers (e.g. Ibn Sina and later Averroes) did not
revolve around the existence of God but around issues such as the ontological
status of God's attributes and the manner in which God created the world. The
theologians held that God created the world in time, while the philosophers
argued that the world was also eternal.
3. For the present tense of the other verbs, it is constructed without the aid
of 'to be'. Where English has copula, in Hebrew it is simply omitted.
Donal orech-din.Donal is a lawyer.
O.K.
On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 9:47 AM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>I thought that I already pointed out that Hebrew does not have the present
>tense of 'to be,' hence it cannot express I AM THAT I AM.>
1. Does this hold for "I AM WHAT I AM" ("I AM THAT I AM" not being a gay
anthem, nor ever likely to be)?
2. In addressing 1., is it of any relevance that pre-Newtonian philosophy (and
"natural theology" as a response to the rise of modern science) did not pretend
to arguments as to what God was only that God was [e.g. the First Cause or
"cosmological argument" concerned proof only that there is God not what kind of
God there is; post-Newton this argument took a different bent, via "natural
theology", of trying to address what kind of God there is compatible with
modern science - but this 'compatibility' was not an issue for Aquinas or
Anselm or Aristotle or even any of the Bs or Cs].
3. What in Hebrew does one do when in English one wants to say "I am thinking",
"I am alive", "I am tired" etc.? What does Hebrew do where other languages use
a present tense of 'to be'?
4. Perhaps 3. should be addressed first.
Dnl
On Monday, 2 March 2015, 8:37, Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
B’seder (aside from the relatively highly marked distance between Hebrew
=everyday or even classical in Agnon etc. – and the torahic Hebrew which is a
bit of a difficult …. Spiel) best From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 02 March 2015 10:36
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: tense In every-day Hebrew one can of course "ani
nimza bebeit holim" etc. but that is location, not the ontological I AM that is
meant here. O.K. On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 9:31 AM, Adriano Palma
<Palma@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: That is know (the absence of present tenses) Maybe it
helps to remind people that tense structures are not at all conceptual, hence
each particular idiolect and dialect has particular tenses, if at all. Not any
specific tense need to be morphologically expressed (morpho expression= in
English, e.g. the unmarked are stem+’ed’ at the final right end position)
From:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 02 March 2015 08:59
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The tetragrammaton I thought that I already pointed
out that Hebrew does not have the present tense of 'to be,' hence it cannot
express I AM THAT I AM. O.K. On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 3:16 AM, Redacted
senderJlsperanza@xxxxxxx for DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: O. K.
writes wonders (if that's the verb) that "whether God originally
spoke to Moses in some language other than Hebrew, such as Egyptian - is a
matter of conjecture."
re: his previous quotation
"is the common English translation (JPS among others) of the
response God used in the Hebrew Bible when Moses asked for his name
(Exodus 3:14)."
Mmm. So let's revise -- after all, Emerson said that conversation is not
permitted without tropes. I shall hypothesise that a conversation did take
place between Moses and Good. Let's revise Exodus 3:13 and 3:14. 3:15 is
mainly Moses's counter-move in the conversation, "Yet they won't believe me."
But in 3:13 we have Moses's question:
"Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to
them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is
his name?’ what shall I say to them?”"
This is clear as can be.
It's not as if Moses himself is interested to know the name. It's just in
case the people of Israel _wonder_.
3:14 opens:
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] And he said, “Say this to the
people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
Here there is a use-mention distinction:
i. "I am" has sent me to you.
Note that that differs from
ii. "I am who I am" has sent me to you.
God is advising Moses what his conversational move in reply to a possible
question by the people of Israel to Moses as to what the name of 'the God of
your fathers'.
This possibly struck Kripke in "Names and descriptions". For consider:
iii. If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your
fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall
I say to them?
In the above, Moses is distinguishing between what Donnellan has as a
definite description:
(D) "The God of your fathers".
and
a proper name.
Note that it does not occur to Moses to have as a ready answer, "And why is
THAT relevant. I'm saying HE is the God of your fathers. What does a name
add to HIM?"
Exodus 3:15 continues with what God thinks is the best reply for Moses to
give, in case they ask for the name of the God of the fathers of the people
of Israel.
"15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The
Lord,[b] the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to
be remembered throughout all generations."
So, it does seem as, to echo Emerson, God is using a trope when he utters:
v. Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
vb. Say this to the people of Israel: "I am" has sent me to you.
As Geary notes, Moses was careful about this, since when he faced the
people of Israel and they asked for the NAME of the God of their fathers, "he
must have been emphatic in the quotation marks".
Postulating Egyptian as the source of the tetragrammaton does not seem to
fit that it's FOUR letters, and four letters only, which are involved here
-- unless in Egyptian only four letters are involved, too?
Cheers,
Speranza
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