tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post8719819468058861679..comments2024-03-28T14:47:11.132-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: EARLY MORNING MUSINGSRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-41097543036620766232013-12-31T22:56:23.636-05:002013-12-31T22:56:23.636-05:00PS: Happy New Year!!!PS: Happy New Year!!!Andrew Lionel Blaishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01976034095806583387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-28998601680487844382013-12-31T22:55:13.215-05:002013-12-31T22:55:13.215-05:00What do you think of this?
Aristotle distinguishe...What do you think of this?<br /><br />Aristotle distinguished between literal and metaphorical predication in terms of the respective bases. The later is based on similarity and the former is based on common properties. Now, the common property thing smacks of Platonism and no one, but no one is a Platonist. So, there is no predication based on the possession of common properties, that is, there is no literal predication. So, what is left? Metaphorical predication that is based on similarity. So, suppose that you're a good nominalist, and you see predication as always based on similarities. Then, also suppose that you now approach Kant's place in the history of philosophy. He appears great not because he cashed in a metaphor, but because he not only offered up a top notch metaphor such as synthesis and stuff like the emptyness and blindness of concepts and perceptions, but he offered these metaphors that look like they will take centuries to think through. I don't mean cash in, but think through in the way that we evaluate metaphors without exactly having some literal truth before us. <br /><br />Page 101 of Kant's Theory of Mental Activity has been at the back of my mind for almost thirty years. Argggg!Andrew Lionel Blaishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01976034095806583387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-22075187421981900832013-12-31T12:52:05.507-05:002013-12-31T12:52:05.507-05:00I'm afraid that whatever analytic philosophy i...I'm afraid that whatever analytic philosophy is, it isn't what you claim it is. Your last sentence ("This meta-philosophical aspect of analytic thought is of course a direct result of its approach to language, which generally rejects language as being "expressive" of something extra-linguistic.") is particularly odd, since it would be hard to find a so-called analytic philosopher who believes that. Of course, analytic philosophers' views on the relation of language to the world, of language to mind and indeed on all sorts of issues in philosophy are quite varied. David Auerbachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15612242467208247588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-25665504121116081532013-12-31T12:37:26.085-05:002013-12-31T12:37:26.085-05:00You write "The importance of a great philosop...You write "The importance of a great philosophical work, I have always believed, lies not in its architectonic elaboration or the fretwork of its superficial detail but in the power and depth of its central insight." And you comment that this is "unconventional". That is unconventional because with that step, despite your background and training, you stepped away from doing analytic philosophy, and joined traditional philosophy, which has also become known (bizarrely) in North American academic circles, as "continental philosophy". <br /><br />Analytic philosophy insists that a philosopher's work is nothing other than the arguments presented. To claim that there might be a central insight, or philosophical position that is something other than the arguments themselves, and that the arguments and "architectonic elaborations" are <b>expressions</b> of the underlying insight or position is quite foreign to the analytic tradition. <br /><br />This meta-philosophical aspect of analytic thought is of course a direct result of its approach to language, which generally rejects language as being "expressive" of something extra-linguistic.mesnenorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10813095598060277786noreply@blogger.com