Eubulides wrote:
>
>
> Actually that is what you and Carrol indirectly suggest with your
> assertion that individuality is not an ontological referent. Tell that to
> the biochemists, biologists and other students of the life sciences. And,
> of course, nothing you have said is original either; we're all
> manifestations of 'derived intentionality' exquisitely controlled by the
> iron cage of history and bureaucracy so let's just kill ourselves and get
> it over with.
>
> There are no successful clones in the social world. Identity/difference
> anyone?
>
Of course we are all unique:it would be impossible to be otherwise. And we all think for ourselves out of our ongoing history. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Eliot remarked that a wholly original poem would be unintelligible to anyone. It's the reification of "individuality" as a mystical substance one strives for that is at issue. Also the plain vulgarity of thinking that choosing this color or that color for a shirt has anything to do with freedom or autonomy.
Milton claimed that reason is but choosing. And he held that God's reason for prohibiting the apple was to give Adam & Eve something to exercise their power of choice. Choice as a mystical entity at the heart of human life. Gagh! What greater tyranny over the human spirit can there be than this forced "free choice," free in the sense of a total separation of the act from its motive.
Carrol
Carrol
> Sheesh,
>
> Ian
>
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