Friday, March 19, 2004
mr. kook has sent in the following remarks in response to the question posed earlier--remarks stunning in the wash of their philosophical and rhetorical beauty. I strongly encourage you to bathe in them, and to drink deep from the well of his wisdom.
he states:
In case you are being serious, I thought i should chip in with some
facts for your blog. Please edit out all truth and leave in only what
sounds nice since that's all that matters.
I remember reading somewhere that Polar bear fur is really clear, not
white, but that the sun refracts onto the fur and makes polar bears
LOOK white.
That's an interesting factoid. I think its also the case that if you
look closely at a snowflake right as it lands on your hand, close up,
it also looks clear. But then, what do we say about snow? Is it white
or is it clear? Can we say about snow - at one time - that it is not
white - and at another time - that it is not clear and if so, can one
say about snow that it both is and is NOT white?
The arrogant and unruly among scientist types think that the closer
you look at something, the more you have uncovered its essence. This
is the passion of Modernity, to think that as we experience more, we
know more and realize that whatever we saw before is DISCARDABLE
information. They will say "I thought, upon first encounter, that the
snow was white. Now I know I was wrong. The snow is really clear."
Phenomenologists take this as their point of departure and say, "well,
the whiteness still has meaning of SOME SORT! Let us bracket both
statements and their implied contraries. In THIS bracket, we have an
experience at time X - [the snow is white, there is no clearness here]
and in THIS bracket we have another experience at time Y - [the snow is
clear, there is no whiteness here.] Now that they are bracketed we are
valuing everybody and everybody's opinion, right? And we know that just
because there are two experiences that contradict that does not mean
that one statement about the world need be right and the other be
wrong."
Right, as long as time and experience need have nothing to do with
logic. The fact that one can say at one time a statement contradicting
another stated at another time is not an EXPLANATION of how logic and
experience work together, but is the posing of the problem of their
disjunction. As for a solution, I am as clueless as the next guy.
Any thoughts?
he states:
In case you are being serious, I thought i should chip in with some
facts for your blog. Please edit out all truth and leave in only what
sounds nice since that's all that matters.
I remember reading somewhere that Polar bear fur is really clear, not
white, but that the sun refracts onto the fur and makes polar bears
LOOK white.
That's an interesting factoid. I think its also the case that if you
look closely at a snowflake right as it lands on your hand, close up,
it also looks clear. But then, what do we say about snow? Is it white
or is it clear? Can we say about snow - at one time - that it is not
white - and at another time - that it is not clear and if so, can one
say about snow that it both is and is NOT white?
The arrogant and unruly among scientist types think that the closer
you look at something, the more you have uncovered its essence. This
is the passion of Modernity, to think that as we experience more, we
know more and realize that whatever we saw before is DISCARDABLE
information. They will say "I thought, upon first encounter, that the
snow was white. Now I know I was wrong. The snow is really clear."
Phenomenologists take this as their point of departure and say, "well,
the whiteness still has meaning of SOME SORT! Let us bracket both
statements and their implied contraries. In THIS bracket, we have an
experience at time X - [the snow is white, there is no clearness here]
and in THIS bracket we have another experience at time Y - [the snow is
clear, there is no whiteness here.] Now that they are bracketed we are
valuing everybody and everybody's opinion, right? And we know that just
because there are two experiences that contradict that does not mean
that one statement about the world need be right and the other be
wrong."
Right, as long as time and experience need have nothing to do with
logic. The fact that one can say at one time a statement contradicting
another stated at another time is not an EXPLANATION of how logic and
experience work together, but is the posing of the problem of their
disjunction. As for a solution, I am as clueless as the next guy.
Any thoughts?
