[lbo-talk] Reich on sex & religion

[Jon Johanning]

On Dec 31, 2004, at 12:09 PM, Manjur Karim wrote:

> What I am saying is that the only way we can make sense of that world 
> is the way we talk about it. 

Looks pretty much like a tautology to me, so I guess I agree with you.

> And your friend Rorty would agree with me, every 
> discursive-communicative context has its own internal logic, own truth 
> claims.

I think you're paraphrasing him, and rather inaccurately, perhaps. 
Could you show me exactly where he says this?

(BTW, why the irritated tone? These are very complicated issues, and 
I'm sure you're aware, since you seem to have some philosophical 
education in your background, that such discussions go on in 
philosophical circles for months and years. It just takes a bit of 
patience.)

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On Dec 31, 2004, at 1:38 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:

> But one argument won't come along that contradicts your whole view of
> the world, because you would have to give up too many other
> certainties.

Yes, it would probably take more than one argument, or perhaps even a 
bunch of arguments wouldn't do it. In science, with all of the 
experimental discipline, and so forth, it still usually takes many 
experimental results of many different kinds and a long time to make a 
major change in theories. In philosophy, you can argue till the cows 
come home, if you have the patience, but somehow, in the process, you 
often learn something.

But there's no problem with giving up "certainties." People do it all 
the time. It's even easier than giving up smoking. :-)

>  That's another good point LW makes: a statement is
> certain because it is embedded in a totality of propositions that
> are taken as obvious and true.  The aggregation of the statements
> you are certain about is a mutually reinforcing network.  (Thus
> our tendency to doggedly stick to our ideas in the face of
> opposing arguments.)  I'll blow a Wittgensteinian raspberry at
> at anybody who claims that philosophical debates about God
> or ontology do anything useful.

You *can,* theoretically, stick to your position forever, but often, in 
the face of a series of penetrating arguments, you end up looking 
rather foolish. For example, that's how G. E. Moore and Bertrand 
Russell ended the reign of idealism in British philosophical circles in 
the early 20th century.

As for Wittgenstein, I appreciate his wanting to show the fly the way 
out of the fly bottle, but some flies prefer to stay in it. :-)

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And BTW, Happy New Year to anyone who might be paying attention to this 
tiresome stuff!


Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
__________________________
A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You 
should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest 
and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax