Cogito Ergo Blog

In response to:The Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, and History

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:03:17 +0100

Your really doing great!.I appreciate it. I will come back again soon...

Estate Agent

London Apartments

In response to:Dramatic Selfhood

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:50:49 +0100

Those are two of the possibilities; I wouldn't say they were exhaustive. Nor, if taken strictly, are they very exactly stated; one of the implications of this view is that there is no such thing as a 'natural' role, and even when one has a role thrust upon one, there is still an element of decision as to whether or not to accept it.

In response to:Dramatic Selfhood

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 08:51:38 +0100

Some people fall naturally into their roles, others have them thrust upon them.

In response to:Violence

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:02:29 +0200

In normal speech of course I don't object to this usage. But this is my more philosophical blog, and in philosophy one chooses one's words more carefully. Rugby is undeniably a rough game, but it's a game, and those participating consent to taking the knocks it involves - within the rules. 'Violation' is partly subjective; it's very difficult, if not impossible, to 'violate' someone who doesn't interpret your actions in that light. I remember the real story a few years ago of how some thugs beat up a masochistic homosexual who was out cruising; he kept asking them to kick him harder, so they did, and killed him. I suppose this was still murder, in that he presumably didn't invite the initial assault. But it isn't murder if someone dies as the result of an accident on a rubgy pitch, unless one can show that there was intent to cause injury. While acts of violence can undeniably occur in rugby, I would say that they are by definition outside the rules, which permit only actions that inevitably involve force but are nevertheless not violence but play.

In response to:Violence

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:38:30 +0200

You write: "It seems clear that the application of physical force by one human being to another cannot count, in itself, as violent."
I cannot accept this, Rugby for instance is a game of "acceptable violence" and any use of such force would violate the person receiving it.

"violence must be quantifiable" is an interesting point, certainly an action that might be defined as violent if applied with a certain level of force, would not be violent if applied at a degree below that level. Tickling for instance would not normally be "violent", but could be applied sufficiently forcefully to become so.

The trouble with a lot of these efforts at definition is that they make too much of it and cloud the subject by to much analysis. I wonder if one could make an equally comprehensive definition in say fifty words.... ;)

In response to:The Creation of the World, or Globalization

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:23:51 +0200

Interesting stuff, but relating solely to what one might call the "virtual world" as perceived by that particular observer and held as a model in their mind. It has no bearing on actual material reality.

In response to:Phantoms in the Brain

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:36:25 +0200

Nice summary. Have linked your post in mine. One is left with the impression after reading the book that no opinion, judgment, perception of the self will seem inviolable now. After all, the brain is capable of so much deception.

In response to:A Note on Plato and Hobbes

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:48:49 +0100

I wouldn't have thought Hobbes believed philosophical thought could imitate formal reasoning...

In response to:A note on the history of philosophy in Russia

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:10:24 +0100

I dated a captain in the russian army once. What he taught me was something that can never be portrayed in books.

In response to:A Note on Plato and Hobbes

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 01:49:49 +0100

Someday i will be able to understand. ;)

In response to:Why Is A "Category Mistake" A Problematic Concept?

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:08:08 +0200

Hi, Luke - I think I have a better sense now of what you find problematic in the notion of a category mistake: category mistakes are logical confusions that are clearly committed in certain easy cases. But the differences between science and religion, the relationships between the mind and the body, etc. are extremely complex and so these are "qualitatively different issues."

I think you're right about this. But I wouldn't, as you seem to, put the difference in the kinds of things themselves. The difference seems to be rather with the type of discourse in which the category mistake charge is made. In the Oxford case, the person who asks to see Oxford after they have taken a tour of the campus has the wrong idea about what a university is. It isn't something which one can see, a material thing. Oxford is, as Ryle says, "the way in which all that he has already seen is organized." We know what a university is (or at least, this issue is not up for debate at the present time), and so we are in a position to say to this person that they are making a category mistake.

When the task at hand is to determine what a thing is, however, and when neither party can claim to have the decisive answer to this question, then to say that one has committed a category mistake can be nothing more than an accusation which some will buy and others won't. Perhaps Descartes did commit a category mistake in saying that the mind was immaterial. But perhaps not. For the committed Cartesian, Ryle is simply begging the question against Descartes.

Put another way, we can say that when the question explicitly concerns the nature of a thing, and thus the categories under which it falls, we put the cart before the horse if we say that one has committed a category mistake because it is a thing's nature which is precisely at issue.

If this is the right analysis, the notion of a category mistake has a limited theoretical value. But then this should not surprise us. It's by now a well-worn saying that "One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." This is yet another example of how logic is merely formal.

Anyway, it's interesting stuff. I'll be looking forward to see where else you go with it!

In response to:More on Category Mistakes

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:31:00 +0200

Hi, Luke - Your thoughts on category mistakes are interesting. I don't think I've heard anyone other than a philosopher use the term, so I particularly like seeing the broader uses you cite.

You speak of the category mistake as a problem, however, and I'm not sure I see why. Is the problem defining the notion? Certainly Ryle used the notion to attack a particular view of the mind, but he took himself to be pointing to a general way in which reasoning can go wrong. It seems to me that the only reason one could complain about this is if one denied that the properties which things have (and thus the categories under which they fall) can be exhausted in our knowledge of them. But this seems like an extremely implausible skepticism.

That said, what do you take the problem of category mistakes to be?

In response to:Ideas From Fire To Freud - Continued

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:46:22 +0200

One should always remember that the study and analysis of philosophy is not philosophy. To be a philosopher requires creative and original thought. Philosophers may, if they so wish, study philosophy, but they do not have to do so to be philosophers.

In response to:"The Passion of the Western Mind"

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 21:16:22 +0100

Pythagorean Commitment is the correct philosophic perspective for Science to be founded/based upon, and led to the unified theory of Boscovich.

In response to:"Historical Ontology"

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 03:24:33 +0200

The beauty and the intrinsic righteousness of a poem is that it cannot be refuted. It can however be dissected and debased; snatches of it taken out of context until it no longer bears any resemblance to its original form. This, I fear, is what you've done to the treatise put forth by Ian Hacking. Ex nihilo nihil fit, and all that. It is unfortunate that you got hung up on the 'ambiguity' on page 2, and I urge you to re-read Mr. Hackings words- your interests are not as dissimilar as you may think. Although it pre-dates the Harvard paper you take your quotes from, his
'Entre Science et Realite: la Construction Sociale de Quoi?' is a veritable trove of his ideas set down in rich loving detail and a constant fixture at my bedside table. It is also a very good template on how to effectively argue a theory.
Cheers,
JHP

In response to:Terminology &c.

Mon, 16 May 2005 22:58:09 +0200

Cogito sumere potum alterum! And you're welcome to join me down the pub where we've known for years that all modes of thought are subjective, involving as they most necessarily do the vagaries of individual man. Perhaps the word you're reaching for is 'dogma', a hefty little word, but one which carries the weight of the absolute.
JHP

In response to:Perspectives

Mon, 16 May 2005 20:03:42 +0200

.. sorry that should have been

www.MichaelStMark.blogspot.com

In response to:Perspectives

Wed, 11 May 2005 02:02:11 +0200

He's not a patch on you Cogito, but I feel you would perhaps find my esteemed keeper's blog somewhat germain to the premise.

Regards

CATHEAD

www.michaelstmark@blogspot.com
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