At 08:52 PM 12/16/2005, you wrote:
>Azmat,
>
>I spoke precisely:
>
>JS> ... everything I see is a sign, everything I feel is
> > a sign, everything I think is a sign, and everything I
> > say is a sign. It's all signs all the way down.
>
>AA> Actually, not every thing is a sign, rather 'every
> > sign is also a thing'.
>
>A thing is not a sign until it is perceived by some sentient
>being -- which could be as lowly as a bacterium. But every
>thing that is perceived is perceived by means of a sign,
>which may be just a sign of itself. But more likely it is
>a sign of just some aspect of the thing, such as an image,
>a feeling, a change in temperature, pressure, sweetness,
>salinity, etc.
>
>...
>What we are fundamentally dealing with are signs. There is no question
>that there does exist something independent of our minds, but what it is
>can only be experienced through signs, analyzed by means of signs, and
>classified by means of signs.
>
>John (01)
This reminds me of David Stove's 'gem' (see e.g.
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/worst.pdf) (02)
We can know things only
* as they are related to us
* under our forms of perception and understanding
* insofar as they fall under our conceptual schemes,
etc. (03)
So, (04)
we cannot know things as they are in themselves. (05)
Stove himself was most concerned with this
argument as it occurred in classical idealism.
Berkeley argued `the mind … is deluded to think
it can and does conceive of bodies existing
unthought of, or without the mind, though at the
same time they are apprehended by, or exist in,
itself.’ (Berkeley, par 23). That is, `you cannot
have trees-without-the mind in mind, without
having them in mind. Therefore, you cannot have
trees-without-the-mind in mind.’ (Stove, 1991,
139) This argument, which Stove called `the Gem’,
is a version of the `Worst Argument’ because it
argues from the fact that we can know physical
things only under our own mental forms to the
impossibility of knowing physical things at all.
Stove finds this argument in many later
idealists. Fascinating as High Victorian idealism
is, its hold over modern thought is not what it
was, so let us leave that topic aside except to
mention Stove’s complaints about the extra
pomposity added to the argument as each
successive stage: `Thus you never say, for
example, "things as they are," and still less,
"things". You say "things as they are in
themselves," or better still, "things and their
properties as they exist both in and for
themselves."’ Then you can construct a seriously heavyweight argument, like: (06)
We can eat oysters only insofar as they are
brought under the physiological and chemical
conditions which are the presuppositions of the possibility of being eaten. (07)
Therefore, (08)
We cannot eat oysters as they are in themselves. (09)
BS (010)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/ontac-forum/
To Post: mailto:ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config:
http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontac-forum/
Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/
Community Wiki:
http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/OntologyTaxonomyCoordinatingWG (011)
|