At 05:07 PM 12/2/2004, Stanley N. Salthe wrote:
>Pedro referred to:
>
> > a new view uniting the God's view needed for the intracloud
phenomena
> >(analytical philosophy, theoretical >structures and developments)
with the
> >terrestrial processes of ascent and descent,
>
> >the whole intellective limitations that surround our actions and
> >perceptions (not our idealized
> >concepts)
>
> >operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
>
> >Some of the essence of information belongs to the boundaries with
which we
> >have to surround it.
>
> >the social problem of knowledge
>
>It seems to me he is calling for some bridge between externalist
discourses
>(e.g., traditional natural science, analytical philosophy) and internalist
>ones (e.g., Goethe's botany, existentialism, endophysics, etc.) . At
>present I see these as incommensrable viewpoints, which could complement
>each other. Of course, there is no reason not to be concerned about how
>this complementation might be accomplished.
Yeh, that is what brought me into philosophy (my first undergrad paper was
on the topic). I started studying information theory in 1971 because I
thought it was the key to the problem. I still think so. The biggest
obstacle I see at this point is that proponents of both sides seem to feel
that they are giving something up by any unification (e.g., the
externalists think that they have surrendered to the mystics, and the
internalists think that they have surrendered to objectivists, or something
like that). The bits I had a chance to see of this discussion were quite
interesting, and some of the intemperate and almost religious assumption of
subjective or objective perspectives made my blood boil. I hope people will
learn to curb their dogma on this forum. At least try to be as neutral as
you can so some agreement is possible. You'd think some of you were taking
lessons from George Bush. I wrote my doctoral dissertation on
incommensurability, and I argued that it was a pragmatic problem, not a
logical one. One solves it by finding a larger perspective. So, away with
narrow minded subjective constructivism and narrow minded objective
empiricism! They are both wrong, wrong, wrong.
John, who will not respond to any remarks on my tirade above.
----------
"The most obvious lesson from Sodom is that when you're attacked by an
angry mob, the holy thing to do is to offer up your virgin daughters." --
Columnist Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Oct. 23.
Professor John Collier collierj@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/collier/index.html
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Cybernetics & Human Knowing http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK
Subscriptions sandra@imprint.co.uk
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Received on Thu Dec 2 23:09:12 2004
