Horton hears a whoness
March 20th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Horton hears a whoness :: Horton hears a whoness :: Horton hears a whoness :: Horton hears a whoness
That Pete wrote:
>Well, in “who am I”, I understand that the “am” is the domain of
>ontology, and if the answer is that “I” is “a mammal”, or “Wu Ming,
>General Citizen, SS# 123-45-6789″, then the answer is about where the
>”I” fits in a taxonomy or database, is knowledge and thus
>epistemological.
>I’m curious about claims that who-ness is properly an issue of
>ontology. People are encountered in an openness, and the “who that I
>am” may be reflective happening in that open. But is that, in and of
>itself, sufficient to make whoness an ontological issue?
who is claiming that who-ness is properly an issue of ontology?
look at the sample answers to ‘who am I?’ that you gave. the first
(’mammal’) is also a potential answer to ‘what am I?’ the second (’Wu
Ming, General Citizen, SS# 123-45-6789′) is not.
a taxonomy is a tree structure; and, in a taxonomy of all that is, there
would be a node for mammal. the mammal node would have a subnode for
human; but, the human node would not have a subnode for humans with SS#
123-45-6789.
a taxonomy has nodes based on what-ness not who-ness.
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
