Intellects, and a bit on desire and scarcity

Ken Hanly khanly at mb.sympatico.ca
Sat Feb 5 16:00:21 PST 2000


Actually it is not a good idea to sharpen the axe if you are intending to get the firewood in, that is split wood. To chop down a tree or cut a log in two, yes, but not to split wood. A sharp axe tends to go in too far sometimes and you have a job to yank it out. Anyway to cut down a tree or cut a log in two I recommend investing in a chainsaw. Or if you really want to be environmentally pc and completely exhausted, you could use a buck saw for the tree and a swede saw for pieces that arent too thick. Maybe theories do not have to be that sharply honed to be useful too..

Cheers, Ken Hanly ;;;;just back from bringing in the firewood.

Rob Schaap wrote:


> I've benefited from it, but I'm outa gas on this one Ken - well, one last
> little splutter, perhaps ...
>
> >> Remember, it's always up for grabs (Habermas's core point), so it'll
> >>chop and
> >change over time.
> >
> >For Habermas, the content is always up for grabs - not the *form* of
> >rationality.
>
> The form strikes me as logically immanent in democracy. Its essence, even.
>
> >> Epistemologies produce ontologies and ontologies produce epistemologies -
> >this stuff changes over time, too - coz it's part of the above, no?
> >
> >The idea of an ontology that changes over time doesn't make much sense to
> >me.
> >As far as I can see, historical contingency is the only ontology that makes
> >sense (Zizek) or, as Adorno puts it, dialectics is the ontology of a wrong
> >state of affairs.
>
> Didn't Jameson say something like 'Historicise everything: the one
> transhistorical imperative!'? I think Roderick said something like 'why
> not historicise Habermas?'. I can handle the idea of historically
> contingent metaphysical truths - it just means that, when it comes to the
> practical business of living, you have to treat some stuff as 'Big T' True.
> So, currently being alive, I do. So do you.
>
> Maybe this cop-out is more congenial to the likes of me than it is to a
> religionist. Anyway, at some stage we have to stop sharpening the
> theoretical axe, and get the firewood in, eh?
>
> G'night, mate.
> Rob.



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