- Is It True At All?
April 24th, 2008, search relatedRelated posts :: Testing for the n+1th time :: Does Heidegger Deny the Reality of the Physical Universe? :: Testing for the n+1th time :: Testing for the n+1th time
>Joseph, why did you separate my premise that identity is a necessary
>condition of self-existence, from the further argument that I gave for
>that premise … when you separate my premises from the reasons I give
>for them, then yes, they’ll look pretty weak.
I haven’t separated two claims:
1. the claim that your premise ‘I remain self-identical throughout all
my perceptions’ is true (ie provable thru evidence based logical
deduction).
2. the further (and stronger) claim that this premise is a necessary
condition of self-existence.
[if you would like to discuss claim 2, look for the post of 2008-04-21
with a subject line of ‘Re: Exposing the Crifasi Maneuver’ and the title
‘Self-Indentity Over Time — A Necessary Condition of Existence?’. once
you find it, *respond to it*. I asked you to explain how your position
could be consistent with the passage I quoted from Heidegger.]
I’m addressing claim 1 here; because, if your premise isn’t true at all;
then, you don’t have much chance of proving it is a necessary condition
of self-existence.
>>>>So my argument explicitly appealed to the IDENTITY of the first
>>>>person pronoun - i.e., that you have yet to produce any reason
>>>>whatsoever for the continued identity of the first person pronoun if
>>>>its referent were to lack a continued identity.
it is an empirical fact that the english language first-person singular
pronoun, ‘I’, has been unchanged for centuries.
using the process of evidence based logical deduction, what do you
deduce from this fact?
are you suggesting that the only possible explanation for this empirical
fact is that the referent of ‘I’ remains unchanged?
you seem to be puzzled by the way language users use the same word time
and again even though the referent changes (however slightly) over time.
take the word ‘chair’. I use this word to denote my chair day after day
even though the changes constantly. The fabric is getting worn, the
frame creaks more and more, there’s a coffee stain on it that wasn’t
there before, yada, yada, yada. but I still call it a chair.
most words are like this.
is it just the word ‘I’ that bothers you in this regard; and, if so,
why do you suppose that is?
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
