ouch!
________________________________ From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 8:27:00 PM Subject: Re: representation Ok, then answer the usual question: Why do things in the non-existing world sometimes bump into you or worse, injure you, and finally --- one way or another -- kill you? If there are pre-wired dispositions, who's the electrician? Why say we when if there is only your subjectivity, there can't be another? Finally, if there is no "other" what of morality and virtue? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Luc Delannoy <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 10:01:32 PM Subject: Re: representation I am among those philosophers (not French) who believe there is no objective reality; we act as-if there are pre-existent objective entities and we are using language as an act of faith to communicate. I am not in the innateness camp even though I agree on pre-wired dispositions. Luc ----- Original Message ---- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 2:29:41 PM Subject: Re: representation You can say as you wish. Descartes is no longer considered the authority re vision, subjectivity and objectivity among the most contemporary philosophers (the French) but few are ready to agree that there is no exterior reality at all which is different from saying there is no exterior reality we can fully access. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Luc Delannoy <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 11:08:54 AM Subject: Re: representation Descartes ? Sure, but look at Diderot for an very interesting alternative; touch vs vision. There is no objective reality to be conveyed, I'd say. Luc ----- Original Message ---- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 10:00:47 AM Subject: Re: representation How about Descartes? He copied Plato in his "innate ideas" theory. For Descartes, vision was the noblest of the senses. It conveyed the reality to the mind and there the mind inspected the images by comparing them to god-given-god proving-infallable innate ideas (embedded at birth). If one used reasoning properly, the image to the mind could be verified by innate ideas. Thus the truth or falseness of objective reality is confirmed by the subjective yet universally innate ideas in the mind. For Descartes, one could not trust the senses, not even vision, for truth, but only through comparing vision to innate ideas that "illuminate" them. See concepts Lumen vs Lux. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Luc Delannoy <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 9:01:26 AM Subject: Re: representation Kate, William: I am looking at "representation" from the perspective of a theory of human perception. So maybe "representation" is a misnomer. If the mind reconstructs nature (with imperfection), it implies a pre-existing objective entity (nature-truth; kind of dangerous don't you think?). That would be "false" subjectivity to me - see Plato and Aristotle about art. I would suggest to get back to Protagoras. I know you want to be in the 21C, still ... Armando: presentation as in phenomenology. I am not sure about objects as pre-existing objective entities. Luc ----- Original Message ---- From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, January 31, 2011 9:38:09 AM Subject: Re: representation Let's be clear then. I never said anything about the literalness of a representation since it can only IMITATE. An imitation, since Plato, is not a literal copy. But we don't need Plato to recognize that we can't reproduce the truth of nature without affecting it somehow with our own subectivity. Descartes thought otherwise because he believed that the rational mind was as if God's mind. Nothing can be fully true copy of anything else (except in an alternate universe). I did say that the term representation usually means an imitation of something in nature, a tree, a rock, a dog, a lizard, something that stands as a comparison to the imitation. I also defined nature as evolutionary nature, not imaginary "nature" as in mythology. any imitation will involve some subjective recasting of what seems to be natural. Please distinguish between copy and imitation; please distinguish between nature and construct; please distinguish between mental image and reality. Please recognize that 2 chief views in western thinking: that the mind can know and thereby represent the truth of nature (albeit with subjective imperfection); the mind reconstructs nature in perception so that we can't ever be sure of what nature is, of itself.
