RE: [Fis] Realism

  _____

From: John Collier [mailto:collierj@ukzn.ac.za]
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 12:34 AM
To: Loet Leydesdorff
Subject: RE: [Fis] Realism

I just want to make it clear that I was using a standard type of reductio
argument in which I assumed something I don't believe in order to show it is
unsound. Of course the split between mind and world is phoney. My aim was to
show that assuming an inner and outer at least has a plausible alternative,
and that the arguments in its favour are not sound. So I agree with those
who reject the split. As a philosopher I am concerned with getting the logic
right. Since there are deep seated prejudices in Modern though about a split
between mind and body that keep resurfacing and confusing our epistemic
situation, I thought it was worthwhile.

Without information channels to the world, we cannot have information about
it. The only such channels we have evidence for are via the body. That
implies we must be careful in interpreting that information, but it does not
imply that we don't have direct information about the world (social or
otherwise). Are interpretations are fallible, but that does not give us
warrant to think they are false, or that we have no such information.

I think I agree with what Loet said below.

John

Dear John,

Let me take my second shot this week. Of course, I cannot deny that we need
the body, but which senses we need for reading "nature" depends very much on
whether we consider "reality" as a construction in the discourse or as
something we have unmediated access to because of our body. As someone
voiced it to me in an offline email: '"Nature" is our conceptual tool for
confronting The World.' John Casti used the concept of a tangential approach
for studying "alternate realities"; Niklas Luhmann used the concept of "a
reality that remains unknown" when we construct it.

I agree that it is a bit a sideline in this discussion.

With best wishes, Loet

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Received on Wed Jul 5 19:59:50 2006