> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net>
> >Angela seems to be implying that Chomsky somehow agrees with those
> > he is criticizing, particularly right here:
> >
> >> >i think he wants to make a distinction between the formal rules of
> >> >speech and the propositions/judgements, as if the formal rules
> >> >themselves are a good thing and only need to be applied more
> >> >rigorously, as if they can be (or should be) separated from the
> >> >propositions themselves.
> >
> >(1) Implicit in this, I suppose, is the notion that rationality
> > itself is oppressive. Well, if you really believe this, what's
> > the point of criticizing anything? Nuclear weapons trump any
> > possible argument.
>
> oh come off it Paul, i argue that you cannot distinguish between the
> form and content, and you read this as an assault on rationality, or
Sure I was doing a reductio there, so what?
You WEREN'T arguing that you cannot distinguish between form and content, you were just SNEERING.
My own take on language is much more in line with George Lakoff & cognitive linguistics, which argues quite strongly that contents have cognitive structure that makes a neat form/content dichotomy impossible to draw.
But this is NOT the same as form/content with respect to a scientific argument representable in formal logic.
Trying to restrain my missionary impulses, I kept the former out of this discussion of the latter.
If you beleive that you can talk about form & content as abstractions, and make arguments about them regardless of what particular context you apply the terms to, then I think you are symply playing games with shadows. (Yeah, babe, Plato had it backwards.) But at least you need to make with the arguments, else you've got no one to blame but yourself if someone like me reads your sneers the "wrong" way.
> as a charge that Chomsky agrees with those he is arguing against?
This implication was so palpable, any first year student should have seen it.
> implicit here was not an argument against rationalism, though I'll
> make one if you want (just remember to read rationalism as distinct
> from rationality),
I'm not a rationalist, I'm a pragmatist, so that's not really necessary.
Point is, while I don't buy all of Chomsky's intellectual package, that's not the issue here. William James located necessary truth in our nervous systems, evolved over eons of time, and shaped via the "backdoor of experience". But it's still necessary truth, even though it's not derived from the nature of THE REAL or whatever other valedictory myth someone might favor. It's necessary for us, because of our *physical* nature, which is contingent, to be sure, but hardly arbitrary. This approach preserves important distinctions, while simultaneously demystifying them, and illuminating their limitations. It doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Of course, James wrote in plain English, so he can't POSSIBLY be a serious philospher.
> but an argument against a neo-kantian philosophy,
> and a critical stance that arises from that.
I never did care for Kant, but he was correct to resist a proto-Quinian reductio of everything to undifferentiated empiricism. James (who studied in Germany) was right to respect him for this contribution. That doesn't make him or me a neo-kantian, tho.
> nor was there implicit here an argument that Chomsky agrees with
> his target - i don't see how you get this implication.
I READ, Angela, I read.
> >So what's going on here? Is Angela defacto denying the EXISTENCE of
> >propositional logic?
>
> if you explain this to me, then I'll see whether i think it had any
> bearing on what i was arguing. maybe we are talking about different
> things, maybe not. maybe i just write badly. if you say calculus
> again, my head will hurt.
"calculus again" ;>
You've never had a course in logic?
But, then, why should you? It's never helpful to actually *UNDERSTAND* your straw men.
I notice elsewhere in your current passle of posts that while you're quite adament in knocking down others straw men:
> ya can't make any definite distinctions - in the sense of
> philosophic ones - between marx and Derrida, me thinks, without
> deploying at the same time a particularly one-sided marxism and a
> caricature of Derrida. comforting, but not finally interesting or
> helpful.
you still just LOVE your own straw men:
> part of the difficulty with establishing concepts like biphobia is
> that they take little account of the terrain, that is that we are all
> referencing ourselves first and foremost against heterosexuality
> (which I hope not even those who are het actually practice, how dull),
How comforting but not finally interesting or helpful "heterosexuality (which I hope not even those who are het actually practice, how dull)" is.
Get a CLUE girl.
> >I think what she means (whether she realizes it or not) is
> >simply that Chomsky is capable of bracketing an argument,
> >and treating it as if it were true. In one form or another
> >this is deeply a part of rational argumentation that I don't
> >see how one could possibly do without it. This same habit of
> >mind is, of course, the foundation of all art and literature.
>
> and what he bracketed in this case were the methods used in
> establishing a science for IQ testing, that is, the method.
No, what he bracketed was the racists argument about IQ differences, as Bill Lear so clearly pointed out.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"