[lbo-talk] Abolition as self-help

[Miles Jackson]

Eubulides wrote:
>
> I wasn't alluding to whether the stochastic storm of neurochatter was 
> critical or free or independent, I was just questioning the 
> presupposition as to we can even get a decent, coherent and agreed 
> upon definition/explication of thought as a term of reference or 
> whether it's yet another interminably contestable term. I for one 
> reject Heidegger's attempted project on the issues [and Descartes' and 
> Hegel's and...] and am simply wondering while sharing sentences with 
> the readers on/of the list.
>
> Ian 

I like Wittgenstein's solution to this: it's the beetle in the box.

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". 
No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what 
a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite 
possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might 
even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word 
"beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be 
used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the 
language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be 
empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it 
cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar 
of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' 
the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.

Phil Inv, section 293.

Miles