Heidegger

In a message dated 04/10/2008 _artefact at t-online.de_
(mailto:artefact@t-online.de) writes:

ME:
There’s plenty of blame to go around (blame = _aitios_ = cause). The
ultra-low short-term US interest rates helped to keep the economic interplay going
after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, but they also opened the door to
the risky, imprudent strategy of borrowing short and lending/investing long..

JUD:
This analysis is pure reification and ontological poppycock. *The ultra-low
short-term US interest rates* *caused* zilch and were not to *blame*.

We still live with the priestly-inspired connection betwixt *cause* and
*blame* which is responsible to a large extent for the confusion that still
attaches itself to the whole philosophical mess which is: *The Theory of
Causation.* Are we anthropocentrically or personificationally correct to *blame* a
falling telegraph pole, which crashes down in a high wind and crushes a car
and its occupants to death? No, but a court would identify the pole as being
the cause of the deaths. Then the telephone company would be sued by the
insurance company. Then, because telephone companies do not exist as a real
entity (only as a so-called: *business entity) the man who ordered the timber
from which the pole was made, or the man held responsible for the regular
inspection of telegraph poles (you know, those lumps of mobile thinking meat
things in overalls who know about wood) would be held to account, sacked, perhaps
sued.

And what about the wind - was that the *cause* - *blame?* What about God,
who created the earth and the wind that blows across its waters, and blows
down telegraph poles that crush cars ? Was HE to blame? Is God more than just
a *prime mover* is he not also a prime suspect?

I am coming to the conclusion that most of mankind is living in a
reificational dreamworld and the stupid assocaition of *cause* with *blame*
is yet another of the ontological Greek spin-offs that helps create this
confusion.

The meaning of *aitios* is αἴτιος: author - you know, *author* ( lump
of mobile, thinking meat often found with pen in hand )as someone who
originates or causes or initiates something (see Strong’s Number 159)

It is the human man or men (you know, those thinking meat things in smart
suits) who decide, act and order the interest rates to fall into line with
*so-called *market responses* or remain the same in the light of some other human
(yes real live human) agenda.

I find it ironic that the very critics and commentators who admonish the
stupid reificative behaviour of the fiancianciers fall into the very same
ontological traps as the culprits they blame.

Strong’s Number 159 (αἴτιος: author)

Hebrews 5:9 καὶ τελειωθεὶς ἐγένετο πᾶσιν τοῖς ὑπακούουσιν
αὐτῷ αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου,

*Having been made perfect, he became to all of those who obey him the author
of eternal salvation*

Jud Evans.

Posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 6:01 am
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback