The Status of Subjectivity
November 21st, 2007, search relatedRelated posts :: Germans outplayed by Ahmadinejad in their own Spiegel/Mirror :: The Status of Subjectivity :: Germans outplayed by Ahmadinejad in their own Spiegel/Mirror :: Clouded Thinking
Michael Eldred wrote:
>Joseph Polanik schrieb
>>Michael Eldred wrote:
>>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: 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?
yes; and, you’d be correct to do so — because there is independent,
third party accessible information to confirm that all the crows that
flew by were black.
however, there is no such objective evidence in the case we are actually
talking about: your claim that I always already know that I am a being
vs my claim that I do not know this until after I have chosen a root
predicate — and only then if I choose ‘being’ as my root predicate.
in the absence of that sort of objective evidence, how is such a
philosophical question to be decided?
are we going to claim that the most popular viewpoint is the correct
interpretation? probably not.
of course you could say that if I continue my phenomenological inquiry I
would eventually see that you are correct; but, I could say the same to
you; so, that gets us nowhere; and, reduces philosophical methodology to
the strategy and tactics of competing troops of howler monkeys meeting
in the forest. we don’t want that.
so, how do you propose to resolve this dispute on a *rational* basis?
Joe
–
Philosophy is, after all, done ultimately in the first person for the
first person. — H-N Castaneda
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http://what-am-i.net
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