Plato

Tahir Wood twood at uwc.ac.za
Tue Jun 25 04:15:12 PDT 2002


Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 23:58:27 +0000 From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Plato

Sigh. To say that something is an accident is to deny teleogy.

Tahir: No, it means that it is contingent in relation to the scientific laws that we are able to bring to bear on the matter. See my other post. Teleology doesn't come into it.

Incidentally, intentionality is only one kind of teleology. It's true that to say that darwinina evolution is accidental involves a contrast class, namely teleological explanation. But it makes perfect sense to do that. We communicate. We even agree. So, you can continue to play language cop, but it's a bore, eh? Anyway, we were talking about capitalism. To say that that was accidental doesn't even raise the issue posed by Darwinian evolution, since it's human behavior that we are discussing.
>
Tahir: Justin, you should have stuck in philosophy long enough to read some of the better bits that deal with science. The question of necessity in history is the same as it is in evolution (natural history - geddit?); the question is whether these things were caused by factors that are potentially knowable or not. The linking of necessity with teleology is nonsense. Take logical necessity for example - what does that have to do with teleology?



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