Path: ultra.sonic.net!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!news.pbi.net!super.zippo.com!zdc!arclight.uoregon.edu!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!aristos.demon.co.uk!aristos.demon.co.uk!sam From: Sam Dodsworth Newsgroups: alt.books.cs-lewis Subject: Re: Definitions Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 13:28:32 +0000 Organization: Annexia Free Press Distribution: world Message-ID: <70IoBMAAwYFzEwYl@aristos.demon.co.uk> References: <01bc1f9f$0b14b9a0$LocalHost@#metanoi1> <01bc2026$140be060$LocalHost@#metanoi1> <5ev6ti$3d7@btc1.up.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: aristos.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsreader: Turnpike Version 3.01 <7c0azr3XvpMr4dZzpifF$I+pPf> Lines: 61 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.books.cs-lewis:6569 In article <5ev6ti$3d7@btc1.up.net>, Keith Schooley writes >It seems to me that one basic problem with modern linguistic >philosophy is that it focuses on something that should be >accessible to everyone--language--and makes it accessible to no >one. I think this is a little harsh. It's not unreasonable that it should be easier to use language than to understand what we're doing when we use it. The same, after all, is true of our arms and legs. I do agree, though, that linguistic philosophy sometimes (maybe even often) goes off the rails. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that discussing language is (arguably) a secondary task, not a primary one - although the same is true of a lot of academic subjects. Post-modernism, anyone? >The only sensible way to answer the question--well worthy >of being asked--"What is The Good?" is to uncover the various >ways in which the word is used, and find commen denominators that >provide boundaries for the word's lexical range. Which assumes, for a start, that we're all speaking the same language (literally, not metaphorically). This is one reason that I'm a relativist. > The result of >any other approach is to come up with an artificial definition >that often is not comprehensible--let alone useful--to most of >those who use the term. Again, I think this is too harsh. There have been a lot of attempts to define "the Good" and although we've not reached any conclusions (and probably never will) many of them are useful or even interesting. I don't agree with Kant, Aristotle or Nietszche, for example, but my own views are informed by what I've read of theirs. > If the quest is really, "What is the >*ultimate* good?" we've crossed over from linguistic philosophy >to the (to my mind, much more useful and worthy of respect) >purview of classical philosophy and ethics. > I share your liking for classical philosophy, but I think our understanding of what philosophy is has changed considerably since classical times. To classical philosophers ethics and natural philosophy were aspects of the same thing, because the Greeks saw moral laws as a type of natural law: "heat", "colour" and "good" were all part of the same natural order. (The Greeks tended to construct much of their morality in terms of ritual pollution: murder in Athens was a religious crime because it brought pollution, and therefore misfortune, upon the city.) This meant that "the Good" was a subject to be investigated in the same way as other natural phenomena - hence the refreshing practicality of the best-known Greek philosophy. It's also worth remembering, now I come to think of it, that not all classical philosophy was like Plato, Aristotle and Democritus. Pythagoras was an outright mystic and what little we have of Parmededes and Zeno is almost Zen-like in its conclusion that both motion and plurality are illusions. Sam Dodsworth (sam@aristos.demon.co.uk) "I think there should be more sex and violence on television, not less. Both are powerful catalysts of social change, at a time when change is desperately needed." -J.G. Ballard