Is philosophy dead?

[thursday]

sarcasm?

is that why you continued to rant about how philosophy is mental masturbation, how philosophers are elitists and are afraid to think outside of the box, how no one uses philosophy in their lives, and that philosophy is just inflated language?

if you're rescinding your previous statements about philosophy being all those things then there's really nothing for me to argue with you about, but just a few posts ago you were dismissing all past and present philosophy as "linguistic nonsense."

i don't know what your "subjective language fallacy argument" is. most of your posts were pretty incoherent, except the parts which were personal attacks on me about how i'm an elitist, how i like to "hurl anathemas" at people, and how i like to use random words i pick out of textbooks or look up on google--all because i used examples of esoteric terminology from other fields to demonstrate that specialized language isn't unique to philosophy.

language may very well exhibit loose subjectivity, but that hasn't prevented us from using it as our primary means of communicating with each other. many great writers have deftly used it to convey precise thoughts and ideas to their audiences. and i still fail to see how this makes philosophy meaningless. or how you can use this subjectivity to dismiss all the great philosophies which have influenced, and continue to influence, the development of our society.

and yes, i do happen to appreciate ambrose bierce's devil's dictionary. but you lack the satirical genius he possesses.

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

Thursday, you really have a way of mashing my words. I do not rescind any of my statements. If you read them carefully then I <--ASSume you will understand why. Let me go through your critcisms one by one so you can fact check them in the post. (our precious, untouchable, always logical, entangled language)

First, Philosophy IS mental masturbation if not followed up by action. After all, what else do we have but our thoughts? If one acts on a philosophical revelation/ideological/logical conclusion, then it is not mental masturbation.

2nd, Never ONCE did i say philosophers are afraid of thinking outside the box. In fact, I said, "It is too damn afraid or weak to reach the masses, who are in desperate need of some out of the box thinking." That sentence directly implies philosophy is almost always out of the box, active thinking.
The masses are afraid to think outside the box because they've been snood-fed passive edutainment all their lives.

Third, Do elitist philosophers employ inflated language?- maybe...that belief depends on your subjective point of view!

Fourth, you attributed to me the belief that "no one uses philosophy in their lives." Well, if you assume that philosophy is the gaining/loving/accumulating/analyzing of knowledge, then it is impossible not to use philosophy every second of our conscious lives. We are always dealing with knowledge and information, however nebulous or concrete it might seem.
If you assume that philsophy has three branches: ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, then I challenge you to make a survey seeing the ratio of those who could proficiently define JUST THE friggin terms of the three branches.

Fifth, I want to reiterate that I will not rescing my previous statements about philosophy.

Sixth, I did say that all words, including all philosophy is "linguistic nonsense." However, do not get caught up in the usual negative connotation of nonsense. As you said, language may very well exhibit loose subjectivity. It is also the primary means of communicating with each other, as you said. However, any proof that proves language holds absolute truth uses language itself, and it thus redundant and illogical.
I hold my statement that language is nonsense, but I would love to be proved wrong.

Seventh, I never said you were elitist. In fact it seems you have an agenda to glorify yourself to yourself and the message board. I could care less about meaningless anathemas hurled at me through my wireless connection. You did start off the thread with a huge flame about my argument, calling me a fourth grader and a dumbass- hey i have feelings! I'm just not a mirror you can bounce your insults off of. Although, now that I logically analyze the situation, I can always turn the computer off- how about that for philosophy?

Eighth- I never once dismissed philosophy's past achievements. All I did was address philosophy based on my subjective linguistic fallacy assumption. Do you really think I would diss philosophy, the work of millions of brilliant minds throughout the ages, and then spend hours typing out posts detailing my beliefs about philosophy.

Ninth- Yes, OF COURSE it has been greatly influential in intelligent Western thought. But go in the bathroom stalls and see the raw truth: Browns fans rule! Suck this cock! Shit on me!...People are for the most part, decidedly "non-philosophical." There are now few people who can think outside the box, and you seem one of them.
Philosophy is meaningless nonsense (see subjective linguistic fallacy assumption). However it is quite valuable, as it is the best meaningless nonsense we have.

Tenth- I do too appreciate bierce's devil work. Of course, in your subjective muddled opinion, I lack the subjective satirical genius of Ambrose Bierce. I would subjectively agree, though we are both stating our subjective opinions. I am neither Ambrose nor his clone, so why should I have his "genius" No, I don't have his penis either but it rhymes- get your mind out of the gutter thursday (see, that was another example of horribly ungenius ironic sarcasmic subjective nonsense)

I have a motto for you thursday: All great inventors are imitators.
thought entanglement...step outside the cyclone of your illusory self!
Then again, this is all just my opinion, man. The duuude!
Friday biatch

 

[Shucklak]

To the uninitatiated, philosophy is hard. It's also intimidating. It's not clear what the point of philosophy is. Its uses are not easy to detect. Its arguments are often very abstract; it is difficult to see how they relate to "real life." Though its practitioners often seem out of touch with the world, they are obviously very smart, and it seems as though what they claim to be the most important points often depend on the subtlest of distinctions. Students are expected to read whole paragraphs--and sometimes, whole books--written by these philosophers in arcane or highly technical English, often in translation. Such reading assignments happen almost nowhere else in one's college career except in literature classes. But at least novelists write for a general audience, because nobody pays them if nobody understands them. For the most part, philosophers seem to write exclusively for each other.(Who pays them?) Worst of all, philosophers are contentious. They each seem to disagree with most other philosophers, so it's hard to know what's really true or whether any progress is every made.

thats exactly the point i was trying to make.

 

[thursday]

first off, this is getting really tiresome, but i'll humor you a while more.

First, Philosophy IS mental masturbation if not followed up by action. After all, what else do we have but our thoughts? If one acts on a philosophical revelation/ideological/logical conclusion, then it is not mental masturbation.

pondering great ideas and questioning previously held assumptions is mental masturbation? even if so, how can you assume that most philosophers don't apply philosophical ideas they feel so strongly about in their lives? maybe i'm "mashing" your words because you don't qualify your statements and you just say stuff like "What good is mental masturbating if NOTHING comes out of it anymore?" and i honestly don't think i've misunderstood you at all, i think you're just trying to change your previous statements because you realize how foolish you sound when you dismiss the entire philosophical community as not producing anything worthwhile, or as all being elitists.

2nd, Never ONCE did i say philosophers are afraid of thinking outside the box. In fact, I said, "It is too damn afraid or weak to reach the masses, who are in desperate need of some out of the box thinking." That sentence directly implies philosophy is almost always out of the box, active thinking.
The masses are afraid to think outside the box because they've been snood-fed passive edutainment all their lives.

ok, i'll give you that one, you didn't say that philosophers don't think outside of the box. but i fail to see how philosophy is "too damn afraid or weak to reach the masses" philosophy classes are available at almost every four year university or community college. they aren't reserved for high academia. many philosophers have authored introductory philosophy texts in an attempt to introduce this art form to the masses. people like you who are stereotyping philosophy as this or that are the ones who are creating the cultural barriers for philosophy to be seen as a necessary and vital field of study, which should probably be introduced to students as early as elementary school imho.

Third, Do elitist philosophers employ inflated language?- maybe...that belief depends on your subjective point of view!

and what percentage of the philosophy community do you see as being elitists? most prominent philosophers didn't get where they are because they use overly dense language. so far i haven't had a problem reading any of the texts for my philosophy classes except for the classics which are simply archaicly worded, and english is my second language, and not even my best subject. usually i have to look up terms like "the gestalt school," or "koehlberg," etc. simply because i'm not familiar with all the the myriad of studies and philosophical thought which have greatly influenced the field. usually good philosophical texts build their ideas upon predecessors or atleast reference other prominent contemporary philosophers. this is true with all fields of study, and i don't think it's fair to pin it on philosophers alone, atleast not without qualifying the criticism by saying, "well, i think A LOT of contemporary philosophy..." but you simply post broad generalizations and even include me in your attacks.

Fourth, you attributed to me the belief that "no one uses philosophy in their lives." Well, if you assume that philosophy is the gaining/loving/accumulating/analyzing of knowledge, then it is impossible not to use philosophy every second of our conscious lives. We are always dealing with knowledge and information, however nebulous or concrete it might seem.
If you assume that philsophy has three branches: ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, then I challenge you to make a survey seeing the ratio of those who could proficiently define JUST THE friggin terms of the three branches.

you don't need to know the definition of ethics, epistemology, ontology, logic, etc. to think about these lofty ideas in your mind. i don't believe there's one person in this world who has never thought about the nature or purpose of their existence. most people have questioned whether the knowledge they recieve is truly absolute or subjective, or if it's all just fallacy. not one person has gone through life without forming a model of ethics by which to act. people aren't as intellectually vacuous as you think.

Fifth, I want to reiterate that I will not rescing my previous statements about philosophy.

well, you seem to be floundering a whole lot, but i guess it's good that you're actually qualifying your statements now even though you refuse to admit it. there's a difference in saying "If you talk to philosophy people today, they sound like they are satisfying themselves with a linguistic exercise in their head." and saying "elitist philosophers employ inflated language." one is a broad generalization of the entire field of philosophy while the other is an objective criticism of what is really a problem of high academia, not just of philosophy alone.

Sixth, I did say that all words, including all philosophy is "linguistic nonsense." However, do not get caught up in the usual negative connotation of nonsense. As you said, language may very well exhibit loose subjectivity. It is also the primary means of communicating with each other, as you said. However, any proof that proves language holds absolute truth uses language itself, and it thus redundant and illogical.
I hold my statement that language is nonsense, but I would love to be proved wrong.

k, i really don't know where you're going with this.

Seventh, I never said you were elitist. In fact it seems you have an agenda to glorify yourself to yourself and the message board. I could care less about meaningless anathemas hurled at me through my wireless connection. You did start off the thread with a huge flame about my argument, calling me a fourth grader and a dumbass- hey i have feelings! I'm just not a mirror you can bounce your insults off of. Although, now that I logically analyze the situation, I can always turn the computer off- how about that for philosophy?

ok, so i have an agenda to glorify myself to myself and to the message board, so i'm not just an elitist, i'm a narcicist and an elitist, great. perhaps my first post was a bit insulting, but i consider your dismissal of philosophers as sophists to be a tad insulting too. and i only made fun of your vocabulary because you seemed to be mocking philosophers for using necessary philosophical terminology, and for being educated, while you were in no position to be mocking anyone for their use of language. perhaps i misunderstood your intentions but to me it seemed like you were trying to make fun of philosophers just because they use "big words." and to me that's just a cheap shot you can make against any learned scholar, especially without providing an actual example of inflated language used by philosphers.

Eighth- I never once dismissed philosophy's past achievements. All I did was address philosophy based on my subjective linguistic fallacy assumption. Do you really think I would diss philosophy, the work of millions of brilliant minds throughout the ages, and then spend hours typing out posts detailing my beliefs about philosophy.

yes, because you seemed like a jack ass at the time. and when you dismiss something as mental masturbation and pretentious language i think it would convey to most people the idea that you don't realize how much philosophy has influenced the development of our society.
and when i was trying to defend philosophy as being more than just meaningless and inflated language you responded with: "If you talk to a mirror for hours on end, telling him how smart you are and about eudamonism and eigavectors and dinosaur philosophy, you will surely believe yourself.
You will probably feel even better if you converse with other self-proclaimed philosophers about their own superior logic. At least, you rejoice, a philosopher, a lover of knowledge, someone who is on my level. You feel as if you have found your place in the society of philosophers. It makes Thursday quite happy to feel accepted in such heavy company.
But fortunately, it is just linguistic nonsense."--doesn't really convey an appreciation for philosophy imho, or the ability to form an objective argument to refute what i posted.

Ninth- Yes, OF COURSE it has been greatly influential in intelligent Western thought. But go in the bathroom stalls and see the raw truth: Browns fans rule! Suck this cock! Shit on me!...People are for the most part, decidedly "non-philosophical." There are now few people who can think outside the box, and you seem one of them.
Philosophy is meaningless nonsense (see subjective linguistic fallacy assumption). However it is quite valuable, as it is the best meaningless nonsense we have.

i'm confused. are you saying that philosophy is meaningless because there are also immature people in our society? i don't quite follow the logic you are trying to present.

Tenth- I do too appreciate bierce's devil work. Of course, in your subjective muddled opinion, I lack the subjective satirical genius of Ambrose Bierce. I would subjectively agree, though we are both stating our subjective opinions. I am neither Ambrose nor his clone, so why should I have his "genius" No, I don't have his penis either but it rhymes- get your mind out of the gutter thursday (see, that was another example of horribly ungenius ironic sarcasmic subjective nonsense)

stop using the word subjective as an excuse for your inability to form coherent statements.

I have a motto for you thursday: All great inventors are imitators.
thought entanglement...step outside the cyclone of your illusory self!
Then again, this is all just my opinion, man. The duuude!
Friday biatch

and i have a piece of advice for you: quit talking shit.

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

This is quite fun. I'm glad you missed my point, as I obviously have missed yours. Maybe neither of us actually have one...

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

What is coherent to one is incoherent to another...
I have another piece of advice for you, Friday is better than thursday IMO.

Double Damnit, i just had an epiphany! Maybe we actually agree. Now you're thinking, "I'm outtie 5000!" But before you scoff at declaring allegiance to such an incoherent ragamuffin as myself, hear me out, and then i'll forgive you for calling me a dumbass. -still hurtin from that one

We both realize philosophy has had a huge impact on the past.
We both wish people employed its lessons more often.
We both realize that today, philosophy is hijacked by those in powerful positions to justify their means.
We both realize language is loosely subjective, although it is the best way we have of communicating information in the present.
We both realize philosophers have reasons for using often imposing terminology, and that it might obscure the meaning to unfamiliar people, but it does not make the philosopher's conclusions less relevant.
The only thing I might disagree with you is the participation in actual philosophical thought by the masses. For all the intro philosophy classes, it doesn't seem people care or want to think about the big picture or think outside the box. Most people are content with the sports page, cartoons, and thirty second newsflashes.


So where is the disagreement?

 

[thursday]

well, i guess there isn't really much of a disagreement anymore then. congratulations for finally seeing things my way--which is ALWAYS the right way because i'm a pompous asshole.

 

[Void]

Well, I recently come to the simply conclusion that spiritual practices are how we learn to face reality and deal with it. Without this we simply try to evade reality, living in our own ego instead.

Now philosophy seems to have two main groups, those philosophers who havent gotten into a higher perspective from egoless states, and those who have. Those who have seem to try to explain it via philosophical ideals as the search for "truth", trying to show people that there is an inner path you can take to see reality. A lot of it would also be about opening your belief system, challenging yourself, to allow for more reality to seep in.

 

[Slaughterhousefive42]

i agree^^ It is quite hard to destroy harmful or restrictive belief systems. The cyclone of the self is quite seductive and illusorilly strong- just like the walls of jericho, but will come crumbling down given enough patience, reflection, and willpower- or drugs hehe.

 

[thursday]

basic assumptions of culture have a powerful influence on people. in order to break through those assumptions i think kids should be exposed to philosophy at as young an age as possible. philosophy questions a lot of the assumptions that we unknowingly make in our day-to-day thinking. developing dialectic skills and being familiar with formal logic allows one to determine truth from fallacy which will reveal a lot of the cultural assumptions we make as simply restrictive cultural dogma.

 

[ebola?]

>> developing dialectic skills and being familiar with formal logic allows one to determine truth from fallacy which will reveal a lot of the cultural assumptions we make as simply restrictive cultural dogma.>>

I would argue, however, that the very structure of the logic we use (one amongst several, let there be no doubt) has become such a cultural dogma, and itself is culturally contingent.

ebola

 

[thursday]

i don't see how that is. can you support that statement with a more substantial argument?

formal logic is universal and is closely related to math--boolean logic in particular. there aren't any cultural specific operations in logic. and, or, not, xor, nor, nand are all universally understood and defined the same across all cultures. logical fallacies are also universal and non-subjective.

 

[protovack]

Thursday Wrote
utilitarianism, rationalism, empiricism, transcendentalism, post-modernism, etc. are not just "opinions." they are revolutionary ideas, and philosophical frameworks which much of modern thought, literature, politics, and even science are based off of.

No, I think they are vocabularies that we use to describe a particular intellectual debate.

Are you saying there weren't "utilitarians" before philosophers started talking about utilitarianism? If so, I'd peg you as a post-modernist. If this is true, why are you defending a particular tradition (philosophy) against what you perceive as threat to its stature and rightness (as a way of thinking)?

Thursday Wrote:
pondering great ideas and questioning previously held assumptions is mental masturbation? even if so, how can you assume that most philosophers don't apply philosophical ideas they feel so strongly about in their lives?

I don't know. I've just been reading some Richard Rorty (prominent post-modernist), and I'd have to say that he has soured my view on the "practicality" of post-modernism in particular. Hell, he totally admits that his "ideal society" full of "liberal ironists" would most likely be composed only of academic intellectuals. And this guy is the mouthpiece of the present day post-modernists!

He sits in an office all day reading and writing. And then he has the balls to say that only "his sort" of people would be ideal. Come ON!

Sadly, a lot of philosophy falls into that trap. The philosopher invents an ideal world, and then has to fill it with ideal people. I think that those ideal people are often reflections of the philosophers themselves...yearning to escape from the dark hole they are trapped in (or university office)

 

[thursday]

No, I think they are vocabularies that we use to describe a particular intellectual debate.

Are you saying there weren't "utilitarians" before philosophers started talking about utilitarianism? If so, I'd peg you as a post-modernist. If this is true, why are you defending a particular tradition (philosophy) against what you perceive as threat to its stature and rightness (as a way of thinking)?

utilitarianism is the name of one particular school of philosphical ideology. claiming that it's more than just an "opinion" and that it's actually a pretty profound concept has nothing to do with saying that people weren't practicing utilitarianism before it was publicized and given a specific name.

and i don't know where you're going with those ideas just being "vocabularies" but when most people use those terms, they are talking about the belief system which defines those terms.

I don't know. I've just been reading some Richard Rorty (prominent post-modernist), and I'd have to say that he has soured my view on the "practicality" of post-modernism in particular. Hell, he totally admits that his "ideal society" full of "liberal ironists" would most likely be composed only of academic intellectuals. And this guy is the mouthpiece of the present day post-modernists!

He sits in an office all day reading and writing. And then he has the balls to say that only "his sort" of people would be ideal. Come ON!

Sadly, a lot of philosophy falls into that trap. The philosopher invents an ideal world, and then has to fill it with ideal people. I think that those ideal people are often reflections of the philosophers themselves...yearning to escape from the dark hole they are trapped in (or university office)

most philosophers do spend a lot of their time reading, writing, and thinking. what's wrong with that? what should they be doing instead? i suppose you don't find their lifestyle as interesting or productive as yours, but that's your subjective opinion. i don't see how that invalidates their thoughts as long as they're logically supported.

i guess there's something wrong with immersing yourself in intellectual pursuit these days.

 

[sourlemone]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I thought I'd point out that I see a similar 'death' in literature. Where is contemporary literature going? It seems everything has been done before. The parallels between the evolution of philosophy and literature are fairly clear, they're interrelated. interdependent almost (literature more so.) We've almost reached a point of stagnation in all walks of life...science is still advancing, slowly, in some faculties - but as for the humanities, well...

I blame postmodernity. Rejection of grand narratives and so forth. More specifically, 'postmodern' literature. So vague, jargon filled, meaningless (or is that the point?)

 

[ebola?]

>>i don't see how that is. can you support that statement with a more substantial argument?

formal logic is universal and is closely related to math--boolean logic in particular. there aren't any cultural specific operations in logic. and, or, not, xor, nor, nand are all universally understood and defined the same across all cultures. logical fallacies are also universal and non-subjective.
>>

I disagree (although many (perhaps most) philosophers would agree with your position). Any logical system we construct will be grounded in certain assumed axioms. These axioms are contingent, and may be chosen otherwise. Take, for example, the principle of excluded middle. We say that any object in our system may be either A or not-A, but not both.

This axiom is not self-evident. It is a choice we make in our logic and interpretations of experience (although it is a very common choice indeed). Various cultural frameworks will defy this prinicple. Prominent examples include indigenous American myths which involve characters that are both humans and non-human animals at once or the Holy Trinity, in our own tradition. Eastern thought would also have a bit to say about the principle of excluded middle.

I have acutally written an essay on exclusive disjunction, which I could post, if anyone cares.

ebola

 

[thursday]

boolean logic is meant to be applied to binary systems, it doesn't assume that everything is a binary system. native american myths aren't binary systems, they aren't even mathematical systems, that not their purpose and that's not how they were formulated. you can't use an alogical system to illustrate a point about logical systems. it's a false analogy.

for example, in mathematics we know that 1+1=2, many mathematicians and logicians have gone to great lengths to prove this very simple tautology. you can't just say, well, jack and jane got married and had a baby so therefore 1+1=3. that's an irrelevant and unrelated phenomenon which has little to do with mathematics or logic. also if you wanted to describe the mythos characters you mentioned as discrete mathematical systems, you can (though i don't see why you would want to, but since you're trying to prove a point about mathematics with them, i'll give you an example of how it can be done).

you can say that the mythological characters are multifaceted beings with multiple characteristics. in order to represent this you can describe the character as a finite or infinite set M. now you also have an indepedent set of human traits which we'll call set H, and a set of non-human animal traits--set N. set H and set N are disjoint so if x E H -> x !E N, and vice-versa. set M can be described as {x| x E H OR x E N}, and now you end up with an M which embodies human and non-human traits at the same time and defined within a discrete mathematical system. QED.

if you took a native american and introduced him to formal logic and mathematics, it will make just as much sense to him as it does to someone raised in a european culture. that's why math is tauted as a universal language. logic isn't up for interpretation, and is a purely a priori science so it doesn't rely on experience or phenomenological observations.

i would be interested in reading your essay, but i suspect you probably made the same mistakes in it as you did in the analogies you posted.

 

[fungus44]

well from this thread it seems that philosophy and philosophical reasoning are alive and well!

I think part of our "problem" is that philosophy is many different things, usually divided into a certain number of areas -- metaphysics, ethics, epistomology, logic, aesthetics -- and often only overlap so much.

Most of my favourite philosophers were not very good "philosophers" -- Heraclitus, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Chuang Tzu, Spinoza, Marx, Freud, Walter Benjamin, Gyorgi Lukacs, Simone de Beauvoir. Rather they addressed themselves to issues which then spilled over to other areas.

I just read a wonderful book, Pedagogy and the Politics of the Body: A Critical Praxis, about education, embodiment, and social relations by Sherry Shapiro, which refers to much of the modern Western philosophical tradition, both to embrace its insights and questions, and to challenge it. I really enjoyed it because it worked on a number of different intellectual levels, and opened up areas of discussion which are frequently ignored in the educational theory and cultural studies which interest me. Her page is here: http://www.meredith.edu/dance/drshapiro.htm

 

[protovack]

if you took a native american and introduced him to formal logic and mathematics, it will make just as much sense to him as it does to someone raised in a european culture. that's why math is tauted as a universal language. logic isn't up for interpretation, and is a purely a priori science so it doesn't rely on experience or phenomenological observations.

All ebola was saying is that the axioms of logic that you have described have a basis in something other than "the objective world of science." They are more than that (which might even be what you are saying).

Logic has spilled over, perhaps, because logic is indeed the one constant that allows us to derive a "self-other" distinction.

For example, take a cell. The foundation of its behaviour is an interaction between the "inside" and the "outside" of the lipid bilayer. Lipids are known to spontaneously form enclosed spaces when placed in a polar solution (water).

In nature (i.e. everything), the boundary between A and B (inside a cell and outside the membrane) is the sole basis of biological systems.

Analogously, mathematical logic is rooted in the same distinction.

But there is a crucial distinction to be made. In logic, there is no boundary that exists between A and B. There is no meeting of A and B in the middle. This would be the expression of the concept "or".

In a cell however, the lipid bilayer (distinct from inside and outside) is actually the sole reason that there can be any observable difference between inside and outside (A and B).

The usage of energy to create gradients across the cell membrane produces the change between inside and outside which we observe.

So we'll call the thing which is "not A or B" the middle, or 'M'.

Thus in the cell example, there can be no distinction between A and B without the prior existence of an active 'M'. There is no zone of higher solute concentration with out the enzymatic processes of active transport.

You will never find any observable phenomena in which there is no 'M' to create the A and B.

Therefore, any framework based on an "excluded middle" is not an accurate depiction of reality. Of course, the illusion of logic hasn't been much of a problem in practical terms. For the purposes of a microprocessor, meaning is derived from a *succession* of such A vs B distinctions. Excluding the middle is not a problem if we can set up a string of 'A-B' distinctions which have meaning in relation to each other.

Thus, the ability to "exclude the middle" allows us to recognize distinctions that are useful to survival. But that doesn't mean that the world is made of zeros and ones. The world is made of a lot of different middles, from which many different distinctions are spawned, distinctions which are indeed the sole product of the middles which we exclude.

Thus boolean logic is a utilitarian practice. We've discovered that we can safely ignore the true nature of reality, in order to mess around with it. There is nothing about logic or mathematics that is inherently "obvious" or "truthful." In fact, it's quite the opposite. It is *definately* based on experience and observation. The thing is, it doesn't really matter.

I just think it would be better to drop the language of "universality" and "empiricism," and just remember that there is nothing inherent about logic. A and B do not exist without M.

It seems possible that if one were to be socialized to think that the sole basis of reality is logic...it would be difficult to conceive of particular practices which defy that logic as acceptable (even though as you said, native american deities aren't subject to logical review).

Given that, it just doesn't make sense to describe the world in a "logical" language. So you are correct in that ebola's example of the half-human half-animal deity doesn't really counter your point that logic will make sense to any human. But let's just remember that what we are "understanding" is an expedient illusion.

 

[knight_marshall]

philosophy isn't dead... its just that most people started arguing about who was right, and forgot to discuss it.
Its funny, and maybe I'm wrong, but most people would believe Socrates was the greatest philospher of all time? And yet no one seems to be asking near as many questions as he did, yet we still don't know the answers. It seems we forgot philosophy is about learning, rather than coming up with answers.