Heidegger

In a message dated 26/09/2006 11:20:12 GMT Standard Time,
_artefact at t-online.de_ (mailto:artefact@t-online.de) writes: Cologne 27-Sep-2006

JUD EVANS:
[on Socrates] As usual he doesn’t know what he is talking about. EVERYTHING
in the cosmos is itself one in itself.

DR. ELDRED:
But how can that be, according to the materialist eliminativist? One is an
abstract idea, not to mention “one in itself”.

JUD EVANS:
ALL human words are abstractions in that they are not objects but
communicatory significations issued as features of the existentially expressive
modalities of human causal objects. Some signifying humans indicate other causal
objects, and some such codes issued by humans do not have such a nominatum and
remain indicationally orphanic. Any object in the cosmos can be meaningfully
indicated with the significatum *the thing in itself* because all objects in
the cosmos exist in that manner.

DR. ELDRED:
So neither one nor one in itself can exist, just as little as something
(also an abstract category) can exist according to eliminativism.

JUD EVANS:
It depends in what sense and in what circumstances the significations are
employed. Sometimes the word *one* is used as an alternative first person
pronoun in such constructions as:

*One has to take more care of oneself as one gets older*

meaning

*I* have to take care of myself, and others of a similar age group to me
need to do the same.

It can also be used to indicate a causal object whose name is unknown: *The
one with the red hair and yellow dress.*
*Nothing, something and anything do not exist per se, though if your hostess
says: Will you have *something* to drink?* she will actually be employing
the abstraction *something* in order to avoid saying:

*Would you like a whisky, a gin, a rum, a coke, a lemonade, a cup of tea, a
cup of coffee, a glass of water to drink?*

The useful fictional abstraction *anything* is another useful fiction that
can be used in a similar way.

*Are you going to eat anything?*

DR. ELDRED:
If something existed in the eliminativist universe, then it could perhaps
also be one, but as it is, nothing at all can be said about what’s in the
eliminativist universe.

JUD EVANS:
Absolutely correct. As no *nothing* - no *something* and no *anything* exist
in the cosmos, all that can be correctly and veritably indicated for the
eliminativist are actual causal objects - things in themselves - which are the
true nominata of the significations employed, as antecedally, mutually agreed
upon signs as to their meaning by members of the given language family.
Adjunctive, ancillary, appurtenant, anthropocentric descriptive abstractions are
additionally useful fictions in describing the way that causal objects exist as
perceived by the circumscribed and limited sensorial equipment of the human
observer.

JUD EVANS: [earlier]
Does that make the invisible exist? I’ll you who/what informs us that sundry
entities that are invisible to the naked eye actually exist - it is the
scientists and their optical and other sensory equipment that signal the
concreticity of tiny objects - it is as simple as that.

DR. ELDRED:
So the first, and perhaps only, theorem of eliminativism is: For all x, if x
cannot be perceived with the unaided or technically aided eye, it does not
exist. Does this theorem have a proof, or is it to be taken as axiomatic dogma?

JUD EVANS:
No, that is not the case. No such theorem, proof, or or axiomatic dogma
operates. Firstly there are many instances of the detection and acceptance of
existing of causal objects without the unaided or aided eye actually seeing
them. Scientists can establish the existence of a some white dwarfs and black
holes by observing the perturbationary effects or secondary gravitational
influences on a nearby binary system that causes it to deviate slightly etc. For
all I know [and I don’t know] it may well be that the same sort of perturbation
detection method could be used in the realm of quantum physics. The
eliminativist [and I did tell you this in an earlier message] is quite willing to
accept that there are trees in Sumatra without actually seeing them. I am also
prepared to believe that the office next door to my personal tutor at UCLAN
[into which I have never ventured] has a window and is kitted out with
electrical points and a floor to walk upon. If, as I often do with the children, I
visit our nearby beautiful Lake District and observe a speedboat suddenly come
to a dead halt in the water and parts of its hull and superstructure go
hurtling into the air, I feel pretty certain [though I cannot see it either with
my naked eye or with my excellent Russian field glasses] that some submerged X
exists at that spot. And no, I speak of Lake Windermere not Lock Ness, so
the object is unlikely to be a saurian survivor from the Mesozoic Era, which is
a descendent of some aquatic beast that got trapped in the Scottish
hinterland 245 million years ago.

regards,

Jud Evans. Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_  http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…)

Posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
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