CPI und OD
November 21st, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: No related posts
Cologne 21-Nov-2007
Joseph Polanik schrieb Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:08:26 -0500:
> Michael Eldred wrote:
>
> >>>ME: Your Confession of Partial Ignorance, “I know that I am; but not
> >>>what I am.”, is an assertion, on the one hand, and a private
> >>>confession on your part, on the other. (Insofar as it is merely a
> >>>private opinion, it is removed from any philosophical inquiry.)
>
> >>the part of the CPI that is an admission or confession of ignorance is
> >>a subjective report of my state of knowledge; and, as such, has the
> >>philosophical significance of a report of a sighting of a white crow:
> >>it refutes the claim that all crows are black.
>
> >ME: A “subjective report of my state of knowledge” is your own private
> >matter, and has nothing to do with philosophy, for which a line of
> >thinking must be “nachvollziehbar”, i.e. comprehensible also for the
> >other.
>
> I notice that you did not address the situation I posed: suppose someone
> claims that all crows are black. my subjective report ‘I see a white
> crow’ is relevant — because it refutes the claim that was made.
ME: I was responding to your “subjective report of my state of knowledge”
which employs the usual highly misleading distinction between subjective and
objective. Insofar as your report, “I see a white crow”, is subjective in the
vernacular sense, it is your private ’subjective’ opinion. If it is more than
that, then the white crow is in the world and, presumably, you can show it to
others — the white crow is then an ‘objective’, shared experience. A few
e-mails ago, however, you emphasized that your very own subjective experience
is beyond any refutation, i.e. it is your quirk. If you claim “I see a white
crow” in a situation where the rest of us see only black crows, but nary a
white one, we will put down your seeing a white crow to an anomaly in your
’subjective’ visual perception, won’t we?
>
> >Hearing the private confession of another is the business of a priest
> >or a psychotherapist.
>
> surely someone with two degrees in mathematics can construct a
> counter-argument that does not depend on how one expands an acronym into
> a phrase. suppose I translated ‘CPI’ as Claim of Partial Ignorance. your
> comment about priests and psychotherapists is now irrelevant; but,
> surely you have something better than that. what is it?
ME: You can call it Claim of Partial Ignorance if you want, but my comment is
based on your description of your own “subjective” experience, which makes it
a matter of private experience, i.e. an experience of which others are
deprived, which you may want to divulge in private to a priest or a
psychotherapist, but which hardly has relevance for an ontological inquiry.
>
> >>your claim is that I always already know that I am a being; and, I
> >>claim I don’t know that to be true.
>
> >ME: In the assertive part of your CPI you assert “I know that I am”,
> >thus implicating “I” with “am” which, in turn, is a conjugation of
> >”being”. So the “joining together” of “I” with “being” is already
> >implied straight away by your original assertion. Are you now wanting
> >to break the nexus between “I am” and “I am a being”? If so, you would
> >have to show why “I am”, although implicated with being, does not imply
> >that “I am a being”.
>
> it is true that, in english (and, for all I know, many other languages),
> the copula is a form of the verb to be. however, that is a linguistic
> quirk. if your argument against the CPI is based on such a linguistic
> quirk; then, it would be invalid if expressed in a language whose copula
> derives from some word other than their equivalent of the verb to be.
> surely you are not relying on an argument as culture-bound as that.
ME: Since you formulate your CPI in English, I also respond in English. Wanna
try German?
>
> you are quite right in bringing to light what I have been trying to make
> clear: ‘I am’ does *not* imply ‘I am a being’.
>
> ‘I am’ only implies ‘I am a(n) [root predicate]’.
>
> in other words, ‘I am’ asserts the root predicate *as a variable*
> whereas ‘I am a being’ asserts a particular root predicate, being.
ME: Already with “I am” you have implicated being. See details below.
> >>I fully agree that what is ontologically prior is often discovered
> >>subsequent to one’s ’starting’ point; but, you don’t seem to
> >>understand that I am claiming that this principle also applies to you.
>
> >ME: Nowhere have I asserted that the OD is the ontological
> >starting-point. On the contrary, I have shown that questioning the
> >presuppositions you have supposed in your CPI leads back to what is
> >posited ontologically beforehand, namely, the phenomenon (not the
> >”chosen” “root predicate”) of being itself, i.e. pure, unmediated,
> >indeterminate presence. This originary phenomenon is not “chosen”, for
> >there is no choice about it — questioning itself leads of itself to
> >this originary phenomenon of the clearing seen by the mind’s eye.
>
> I do not deny that this originary phenomenon is ontologically prior to
> the language used to describe it. I am, however, saying that the
> language used to describe this originary phenomenon as ‘being itself’
> depends on the choice of ‘being’ as the root predicate.
ME: So we agree that the originary phenomenon is prior to any predications,
so that the term “root predicate” is insofar uprooted and derivative of the
originary phenomenon.
>
> I chose ‘reality’ (and cognate terms) as a root predicate; and, thus,
> describe this originary phenomenon as ‘reality itself’,
>
> someone who chooses ‘existent’ (and cognate terms) as a root predicate
> would describe this originary phenomenon as ‘existence itself’,
ME: This originary phenomenon can have many names, i.e. many different
aspects can be predicated of it. Moreover, in everyday language, being,
reality and existence are employed as synonyms, whereas a philosophical
discourse introduces distinctions that keep such terms apart. However, the
naming/predicating is not arbitrary, but already ‘prescribed’ by language,
i.e. the predicate is not simply a “variable”. The many names which this
originary phenomenon can have, however, always includes “being” pure and
simple. The search for a unique so-called “root predicate” is in vain since
the originary phenomenon has many facets that come to light.
>
> >ME: In following your line of argument, which starts with the CPI
> >(partly an assertion and partly a confession), there is nothing more to
> >discover.
>
> there is Axiom 0.
ME: Which says:
> “there is a predicate, P, such that, for any x that is, x is P.
>
> [Using E = the existential quantifier and A = Universal quantifier]
>
> Axiom 0 = (E P)(Ax)(Px)” (JP Wed, 31 Oct 2007)
> ME:
> >I have pointed out several times already, the “vs.” between CPI and OD
> >is entirely skew-whiff. They are not opposed, but on different planes
> >altogether.
>
> I agree that the CPI and the OD are on different levels.
>
> >The ontological difference concerns how being comes over beings, thus
> >enabling them to define themselves AS beings.
>
> this is precisely why the Claim of Partial Ignorance is prior to the
> Ontological Difference: all of these concerns depend on the choice of
> ‘being’ as a root predicate.
>
> the CPI means that I don’t yet know whether I am a being or a reality or
> an existent (or whatever).
ME: If you are “a reality or an existent (or whatever)”, then you are also a
being. There’s no way for “I am” to ward off “being” as a name for the
originary phenomenon to which “I am” already points.
>
> it is only in choosing a root predicate that I become able to define
> myself as a being or a reality or an existent (or whatever).
ME: You seem to think that one can “choose”, and perhaps even “choose” to
exclude “being” as a possible choice. But this is not so.
>
> here is one *possible* logical reconstruction of the movement from the
> CPI to the OD showing the assumption made by the OD that is not made by
> the CPI.
>
> 1: I know that I am; but, not what I am.
>
> 2: what, then, am I?
>
> [my thoughts meander about until Axiom 0 is brought to light].
>
> 3: I consult Axiom 0 and realize that I must choose a root predicate.
>
> 4: I choose ‘being’ as my root predicate and I now know that I am a
> being. I can now consider the OD which considers the referent of ‘I’ in
> its being and its relation to Being and so on.
>
> of course, an individual could choose a different root predicate.
> indeed, I personally prefer reality; and, so, at step 4 I conclude that
> I am a reality.
>
> >>the CPI is a statement of one’s knowledge and ignorance prior to the
> >>*choice* of a root predicate. the OD assumes that choice is already
> >>made.
>
> >ME: There can be no “choice” here.
>
> surely you jest.
ME: Nope. If you claim, “I am a reality”, you are simultaneously also
claiming “I am a being”. Furthermore, since the root of reality is L. res,
thing or issue or matter, it may well be argued that “I am not a reality”
pertains, i.e. that “reality” precisely does NOT point to the originary
phenomenon but rather misleadingly deflects..
>
> you and I have different root predicates; so, obviously, there *is* a
> choice.
ME: Nope. There’s no way to ward off being as an originary experience, i.e.
as long as one respects what language always already points us to, rather
than treating language like some sort of symbolic code. The originary
phenomenon can be multiply predicated, and each predicate has to justify
itself on its phenomenological merits.
> Axiom 0 states only that there is a root predicate.
ME: Or “root” predicates. Axiom = does not exclude a plurality.
>
> perhaps you are claiming that I am mistaken when I claim that Axiom 0
> does not specify which predicate(s) qualify as a root predicate. if so,
> show me how you prove, on the basis of Axiom 0, that ‘being’ is the one
> and only root predicate.
ME: Why should I argue at all on the basis of an asserted Axiom 0? For
phenomenological questioning, it’s the phenomena themselves that lead the
way. As I point out above, ‘being’ does not have to be “the one and only root
predicate”. Being has many names, as already Aristotle knew. These names
include pure immediate indeterminacy, nothingness, idea of the good,
presence, truth of being, the clearing, the Da, time, enablement or even
being-crossed-out. The originary phenomenon has many facets or folds. It is
manifold.
> perhaps you are claiming instead that Axiom 0 is false. if so, show us
> how you prove that it is false.
ME: Axiom 0 is trivial. As I said before (01 Nov 2007) “…a predicate is
that which is said of a subject, the subject being a _hypokeimenon_ about
which something can be said. So a predicate presupposes the elementary
structure of the _logos_ (proposition) investigated by Plato,
namely, saying something about something, or predicating something AS
something. In other words, any predicate presupposes a being about which it
is
or can be said. So one can translate your Axiom 0 into “There is something to
be said that can be said of all beings, x.” In this way, however, the sense
of
being itself remains unexplicated, i.e. it is implicitly understood and
presupposed. It is trivial to predicate of a being that it is, …”
Moreover, Axiom 0 misleads through its formalization, (E P)(Ax)(Px), which
obfuscates that x already stands for a being, an entity, an existent…
>
> perhaps you are claiming that there is some other axiom(s) on the basis
> of which you conclude, not only that there is a root predicate; but,
> that no one on earth may choose a root predicate other than the one you
> prefer.
ME: The originary phenomenon has many names, including “being”. Each name has
to be argued for on its merits according to what it points to and shows up in
an elucidating, convincing manner. Such names come about on paths of thinking
that meander carefully through the originary, simple experience of the
originary phenomenon. Such paths are not rigorous deductions proceeding from
postulated axioms; rather, their rigour lies in the care they take in saying
carefully what can be seen upon removing the hindrances that arise mainly
from overlooking, from discarding as ‘trivial’ or ‘obvious’..
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_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
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