But that "is" where I find my choice of thruth. Should look to my friend for advice as to where his IS? ab
________________________________ From: William Conger <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, September 11, 2011 8:06:43 AM Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility. Fine. But keep in mind it's called nihilism. It's essentially a give-up approach, an abandonment of the quest for truth as good and truth as always true. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the mark of a first rate mind is to hold contradictory views in mind simultaneously. After writing that he went on: "One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise". What's the point of making art if it's not for the good of art itself and not merely for the good of a few sympathetic friends of the artist? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: ARMANDO BAEZA <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, September 11, 2011 12:29:56 AM Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility. So the area between beauty and ugly is really the area where we individually find our personal choice, and those that agree with us. I can agree with that. ab ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, September 10, 2011 9:24:58 AM Subject: Re: Aesthetics, intellect, high intelligence, and sensibility. William writes: "The trouble with Cheerskep's arguments is that he seeks to define the 'if and only if' traits of high intellectb&" I would hope not to be understood that way. When I wrote my earlier ramblings about "high intelligence", I was not trying to "define" it. I was only trying to describe the notion I had in mind when I used that term. I don't believe there is an entity in the mind-independent world that "IS" "high intelligence" that has 'if and only if' traits. I think Plato was wrong to believe in "absolute" entities he called "qualities" that humans "participated in"-e.g. holiness, smartness, beauty, strongness, laziness, etc. We all have various notions that come to mind with a term like "high intelligence". Because they vary, if I am to use the term and want my readers to conjure something close to the notion I have in mind, it's my responsibility to describe my notion. My notion is neither right or wrong in some absolute sense. For it to "be" right or wrong, there would have to be some absolute Platonic standard - a mind independent "quality" against which we somehow measure our notion. For other examples, consider sports. In baseball, there is much talk about the league "MVP" - the "most valuable player". Advocates differ in what they would call "necessary traits" of the year's MVP. "Gonzalez is the MVP because he has the highest batting average and the most runs batted in." "That's not what I'd call the MVP. The MVP has tob&" Note how both speakers sneak in tacit absolute standards. "Gonzalez ISb&" "THE MVP has tob&" Another example is "good mother". There are no absolute Platonic qualities that "prove" someone is a "good mother". And we're all likely to have varying notions of what we'd CALL a "good mother". It is an error to assume that a "definition" can cite any "trait" that can make an element or activity BE what it is called. Stipulation is not creation. If I say, "A foopgoom is a YYYY," and feel I have thereby somehow given foopgooms a "real ontic status", made them "real things called foopgooms", I'd be silly. This even holds for communities. When Wittgenstein said in effect, "A word's meaning is its use in the community," it was unfortunate phrasing because it suggested there is an entity other than the utterance and the roughly similar notions the utterance occasioned in the minds of members of the community. The entity he was "positing" was a "meaning". All you can hope for is to describe your notion. "If it's like that, then I call it XXXX." When I described the young woman who has the highest grades in a wide range of college courses, I believe I was not alone in being ready to CALL her a person of "high intelligence". But this did not mean there is a mind-independent Platonic "category" of people with "high intelligence" of which this woman is a member. If a guy said to me, "Look, my brother John was never any good at languages or poetry, but he brilliantly fixes so many different appliances and complicated household apparatuses, and even computers and automobile engines, I call him 'highly intelligent'," then, though he may use the term differently from me, I wouldn't say the guy is "wrong". William continues: "b& and then [Cheerskep] turns to examples from his own experience and people he's met, as if these examples prove a general co ndition and not merely separate, accidentally relevant cases." I don't take the position that my describing my notion behind my use of a given term "proves" a "general condition". I'm solely trying to enhance the possibilities that my reader conjures notion somewhat similar to mine - in kitchen English, that the auditor gets what I'm talking "about", or what "I'm saying". William's next sentence is, "The whole point of making a general definition of something is to avoid relying on particular cases." Spurred by that sentence, in my next posting I hope to dwell a bit on "definitions", bringing up what I hope I can make interesting -- the question of "natural kinds".
