From: graham@maths.su.oz.au (Graham Matthews)
Subject: Re: Words Feminists find Demeaning!
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 23:17:08 GMT

Graham:
>Sure I am. The term *one true Islam" cleary refers to interpretations
>as otherwise it is pretty meaningless.
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>That's right.  So we're talking about interpretation, not definition.

I had assumed from the start that we were talking about interpretations
and I called these definitions as I presumed no-one would be talking
about the "stand-alone" meaning of a bunch of syntax.

Graham:
>How do I know who has the correct interpretation? Given two 
>interpretations of the same passage how do I know which one to pick?
>Lets give a simple example from english usage
>
>	"I went to the park with the dog"
>
>Now there are two possible interpretations of this sentence. By
>your reasononing above you would say that these two interpretations
>are not equally valid. Care to tell me what criterion you use for
>ascertaining the validity of the two interpretations? Once you have
>done that you could tell me why you chose those criterion over other
>possible criterion. Then you could apply this type of thinking to
>your position on the Quran.
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>In referring to the sentence "I went to the park with the dog" you
>say "by your reasoning...these two interpretations are not equally 
>valid."   Answer:  I gave a criterion for evaluating sentences from
>the Qur'an and sunnah.  I didn't give a criterion for evaluating any
>arbitrary sentence.  The sentence about the dog and the park does not
>fall in the category of Islamic scripture.So, my reasoning gave absolutely
>no information about the two possible interpretations of the sentence
>about the dog and the park.  I didn't give a definition by which to
>judge arbitrary sentences.

You miss the point somewhat - the sentences in the Quran are arbitrary
sentences. I do not feel that you criterion for judging the validity of an 
interpretation is much us because it relies on having a standard by which
you judge, and how do you know what this standard is? My example of the
"dog and the park" was an attempt to illustrate this problem by analogy.

Graham:
>>Sure this is indeed the true Islam, but the problem is that no-one
>>actually knows what the intention of God and his prophet is. They have
>>some words in a back which purport to define that intention but as
>>you admit above everyone has a different interpretation of those
>>words.
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>How do you know "no-one actually knows what the intention of God and
>his prophet is" ?  I don't think you have any logical basis for making
>such a claim.  Think about it.  It may very well be that some people
>know God's intention (of his statements in the Qur'an).  There may also 
>be alot of people who correctly understand, say, 90% or more of the
>sentences in the Qura'n.  We have no objective basis for believing 
>otherwise.

About this time I begin to wonder if you are reading my posts. Lets get
this clear I am not attacking Islam in any way shape or form. All I am
doing is noting that a human *CANNOT* read the written word without
*INTERPRETING* it - do you dispute this fact? If so please tell me
why?

This really is the core of the argument - all this other stuff is red
herrings brought up by other people. I suggest we stick to this one
question.

Graham:
>You are making a simple mistake here. To saying that some 
>interpretationsa stray from the true Islam and some don't is indeed
>true since if we have two interpretations of the same thing both
>cannot be right. But the issue here is given two interpretations
>I1 and I2, how do I chose which of them is correct? Surely to
>chose one is to imply that you have a standard by which you judge.
>But how do you know if that standard is correct?
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>You see, most of the Qur'an is easily understood by all or most Muslims
>in the same way.  The issue of different interpretations comes up with
>a fraction of the Qur'anic verses.  Your question is basically how can
>we tell which interpretation is correct.  The answer depends on which
>standard or method you use in arriving at the interpretation.  If the
>method is correct, then the interpretation is correct.  Then the question
>is how do you choose the method?  The answer is that there is a single
>criterion for choosing the standard or method:  The criterion is that the
>method is chosen in the way that satisfies the definition best,

Sorry Behnam, but if you think about this your last sentence does
not make any sense at all. Definitions do not have any meaning, so
we cannot chose a method to best satisfy a definition. We could
chose a method to best satisfy an interpretation of a definition but
this then leaves the problem of how do we know which interpretation
is correct.

Behnam:
>I won't be able to continue with this discussion for two reasons:
>1)  How in the world do I know my interpretation of your words is the
>correct one?  How do I know my standard is correct?   Even if I ask
>you to clarify all that you say, again I'd have the same problem:  How
>do I know my interpretation of your clarification is correct?  If you
>bother to answer these very questions that you're now reading,
>how do I know I understand your answers correctly?  

Yawn - I did not say that communication was impossible, I said that
*perfect* communication was impossible

>Behnam Sadeghi
>2) I don't have the time (and the interest) to continue with this 
>discussion.

Fine - but if you want a smaller thread how about answering the
question I posed as the core of the argument.

graham
--
Graham Matthews                 And it's true we are immune
Pure Math, Uni.Sydney, Oz       When fact is fiction and T.V. is reality
graham@maths.su.oz.au