snitgrrRl writes to take me to task for getting moralistic with Ken. She writes Nov 5/98 Thurs: Well Gee Whiz Doyle. That was extremely helpful. I really like how you criticized Ken for responding by getting all moralizing and mushy gushy with feelings and then concluded your post with some mighty nice moralizing and emotional statements yourself.
Doyle I'm not sure what snitgrrRl refers to here. I see Ken's comments leading him to reject the "whole" out of principle. Once Ken has done that I think to replace the sense of whole that is lost, Ken tries to use an ethical and moral system which takes into account that he has no whole in the sense I have in my thinking. I admit I have values, for instance, I reject Ken's position in two ways. I reject the morality that Ken displays concerning various things, because I don't see the efficacy of the statements. And I can't see why I would need to reject the sense of whole I have.
Doyle I think snitgrrRl confuses here using morals as a tool to advance social goals which I reject, and having my own "moral" stance. When I let people know something like my values, the other person gets a fuller picture of who I am. That is what I like to see happen that other people know me better. I like feelings. I am not a rationalist in the sense that I think reason has no feeling in it. I just see moralizing about rightness and wrongness of things is both quasi-religious in foundation since it issues from Christian practices, and of little utility in shaping a social movement which is democratic, and equal.
Ken Emphatic rationality is a form of reasoning that incorporates dialectically the is/ought. "Human beings are free." This is an emphatic statement - descriptively it is false (because human beings are not free) and prescriptively it is true (because human beings should be free). this is what i mean - and it isn't too far from emphasis. My use of the term stems from the work of Adorno and Marcuse.
Doyle Thanks Ken for the elaboration. In some sense here Ken is saying what I say above. "Emphatic rationality" I think means adding in how one feels about what one reasons. I don't know Adorno, and Marcuse. So I can't say how I might have come to something like this sense of things that I share with Ken from their thoughts. But, I would say though I reject some ideas of Ken's about the whole, but one can see that Ken has a right to walk another ground from my "moral" judgement. I don't mean this in a sense of tolerance, I mean it that certain kinds of answer are unavailable to me if I reject Ken's position. I see troubles with those ideas of Ken's, but it is equally clear to me that Ken may discover things I wouldn't otherwise. His system seems fragile to me for various reasons, but within it there might be some powerful insights because Ken is exploring a world where what I think of as common ordinary experience of thought is drastically changed into a world where feelings are much more important.
Ken Apologies if my post came across in an offensive way.
Doyle It didn't offend me. Actually I had more to say to your post since you didn't define things, than if you had answered every query I had. I appreciate you taking another moment to again try to get across your understanding of emphatic.
Ken I'm not gloriying incoherence, simply point out that it might be a structural problem, one that needs to be dealt with as clearly as possible. My focus here in on a kind of praxis - a working things through - rather than attempting to resolve everything on a theoretical level and then applying it to practice.
Doyle I see that. One of the things from my point of view that I think you miss is that in the mind, there are invariant awarenesses. When you talk about defining changes the meaning of things, the mind needs to know all the things at once in order to see color. Color can't be seen by itself, it has to be seen in context. So from my point of view I can see interconnectedness not as constantly reshaping things, but contributing to a stable sense of understanding. As usual Ken you practiced kindness and understanding toward me. Thank you. regards, Doyle
ps I know it burns your cockles snitgrrRl being nice nice. How about this, a Jolly fuck you to those who don't agree with me. Better yet a kick up the arse, and down the sewer. Then around the corner to third street and don't forget to pay your fare. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/19981105/9a62ddb7/attachment.htm>