From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Philosophical Influence
Date: 17 Aug 92 11:13:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Aug17.071316.14809
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Aug17.024216.1123@a.cs.okstate.edu>
onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu (ONSTOTT CHARLES OR) writes:

>From article <1992Aug16.043209.14785@husc3.harvard.edu>, by
>zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny):

COO:
>>>				        Now, I will ask you a
>>>simple question and hope that you will answer it:  In what way
>>>do you find Heidegger to be any of these things?  Do you not
>>>understand the methodology that he, among others like himself
>>>such as Ortega Y Gassett and Kierkegaard, employ?  Or is it that
>>>you find that that sort of methodology is an unfruitful one?  If so,
>>>in the latter, how?  I can not respond to your claim because I can not
>>>begin to understand in what fashion you arrive at such a conclusion.

>MZ:
>>Well then, try reading my article until you get its point.  I feel that I
>>have been quite explicit in stating my grievance; however it is evident
>>that you didn't get it, and I don't feel like belaboring the obvious.

COO:
>Vacuous statements do not a point make..

The point was made earlier.  If your knowledge of classical precedent is
insufficient to figure it out, I advise looking up the names I cited.  I
have far too little time here to engage in remedial explication.

MZ: 
>>This hackneyed dichotomy may well apply to a master chef; however I find a
>>philosopher's ideas to be inseparable from his political life.  And on the
>>subject of the latter, the final word on Heidegger has been written.  Too
>>bad for his ideas.
>

COO:
> Aha, so you are more Derridian than you want anyone to believe...

You have the most amazing propensity for misinterpretinf my words.  Try
Farias instead of Derrida.  Not a great thinker, but he got his facts
right.

COO:
>However, I am attempting an argument based on Heidegger's text, not
>Heidegger's life--now if I am not mistaken, these two things are different and
>to argue against the first by means of the second is a fallacy.  Since
>you are the one who teaches the logic classes, be my guest to give
>it's official latin lable.  Further on the latter, you have no case.

I told you once that I have no interest in arguing about Heidegger's text.
However, if you have any ideas, I'll be happy to discuss them.

COO:
>>>Last, the reason why I find representational theories to be "crap"(and
>>>I leave it to you to determine the precise meaning of this--am
>>>I really refering to feces?) is that it attempts to categorize and
>>>as such remains bound to the ontical.  

MZ:
>>Only if you believe that sign must remain bound to the thing signified.
>>Having said that, I must confess to holding that reality is utterly
>>exhausted by the ontical.

COO:
>Only the ontical is utterly exhausted by the ontical--the question 
>of reality can not arise without pressuposition.

Sez you.  I find Parmenides fare more persuasive, not to mention correct.

COO:
>>>Second, it comes as no surprise that you find the
>>>second task of philosophy as that which concerns meaning--this point
>>>and your first task go hand in hand.  It turns out, Mikhail, that the
>>>two tasks you have set forth, as divided in two, can not
>>>be seperated.  Confused?  Always look to the function of the sign,
>>>the function of the sign is to structure.  Since it was the structure
>>>you were looking for, and since the sign is to structure, your first
>>>task should have stated "find meaning."  And finding meaning, Mikhail,
>>>is the purpose of philosophy--See...Heidegger isn't so bad, now is he?

MZ:
>>You seem to be confusing the function of the sign with its structure.  The
>>function of the sign is to denote; otherwise, I assure you, we wouldn't be
>>having this conversation.

COO:
>And what does denotation do Mikhail?  Structure..  Denotation and structuring
>go hand in hand unless you would like to 
>explain why they do not--I would be much appreciative. Mmm. Now you
>are back to square one.  

Unfortunately for you, the burden of proof lies on the party making a
positive claim.  Denotation doesn't have to do anything, except be denoted.
If you think otherwise, try telling me why.

COO:
>>>Your next question is probably "so what's wrong?"  The answer is:
>>>nothing, so long as you don't pressupose reality in the finding of meaning
>>>and here I say "reality" not "being" because being is always presupposed..

MZ:
>>I don't presuppose much of anything these days, -- doctor's orders.
>>Instead, I deduce things, as far as I can, and no further.  Reality of
>>meaning is one of them; being, though decidedly not a big deal, is another.
>>Have I mentioned Parmenides yet?

COO:
> First, Being can not be deduced--it is always presupposed. 

I take the _cogito_ over the overwhelming authority of your claim.

COO:
>							     Second,
>meaning can be deduced, as it has been, but it is not limited to a simple
>deduction.   Ontically, meaning is deductable.  

I fail to understand this claim.

COO:
>						Third, you fail to
>address the reality issue--the pressupposition of reality was made in
>your first task stated as "find the structure of reality."  The problem
>which Plato had, which Heidegger brings up again, is that we are
>not clear what "Being" is nor do we have any idea of what reality is either.

Speak for yourself, kemosabe.  My intuitions differ.

COO:
>Now, being is that which must be pressuposed in any case, ie Descartes
>went to far to add the "je pense" to his equation.

That's the easy misreading of the argument, which in any case was
originally formulated in Latin, which allows ellipsis of the subject.  For
an easy corrective, see Jerrold Katz' _Cogitations_.  However, I must go on
record as disclaiming any prior experience of Cartesian doubt, so this
discussion may be quite pointless for yet another independent reason.

COO:
>						    Now, to avoid a confusing
>equivocation of Being and Reality, we must seperate the two so that
>they will not be confused.  On this point, reality is a world in which
>we search(appropriate as I was reminded by Professor Dreyfus once).
>Now, the realitivistic flag may be tripped in your mind--but you must 
>realize that we are not certain what you mean by truth, nor are we
>certain what you mean by reality. 
>  A propos the relativistic elements, Heidegger reduces the looming
>philsophical problem down to a simple determinite which is pre-analytical:
>it claims "there is."  It claims that "truth" is that which denotes the
>world as such.  Since the world is "in each case mine."  And since we
>all are, the truth is a universal--not too terribly relativistic now
>is it. 

Charles, this is getting quite hopeless.  We are really speaking different
languages, and I have absolutely no interest in humoring you by mocking
your idiom.  I find that some of your basic claims are due either to
ignorance, or more charitably, to unwarranted revisionism; the latter is
what I originally tagged your master with, so you may share the honors if
you so wish.  As for me, I prefer to converse with post-Eleatic, if not
post-Socratic philosophers.  Your discourse, as it is presented, is a great
illustration of the reason why Heidegger is not taken seriously by the vast
majority of Anglo-American philosophers: you habitually indulge in
grandiloquent, utterly unsubstantiated claims, which attempt to turn the
clock back 2,500 years, without the least regard for the intervening
history of progress in the subject.  Unfortunately for you, you lack both
Heidegger's sophistication and his classical erudition; fortunately, you
are well on the way to matching him in bad faith, as I have demonstrated
elsewhere.  Unless you can show me that you are capable of presenting a
brief, cogent agrument, -- not an assertion, not a quotation or paraphrase,
but an argument, -- this discussion is now officially over.

MZ:
>>>>>>"Un de mes plus grands plaisirs est de jurer Dieu quand je bande."

COO:
>>>Ca, c'est vrai et tres evidement.

MZ:
>>You still have to do something about that grammar...

COO:
>Oui, Ca, c'est vrai et tres evident.  (finally....)

Yes.

COO:
>However, I am confused about this "jurer Dieu" doesn't there need
>to be an "a" in there?  The construction you used looks more like 
>english.

Please address all complaints to the divine marquis.

>BCnya,
>Charles O. Onstott, III
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Charles O. Onstott, III  Account at Oklahoma State University for summer.
>Graduate Student in Religious Studies           onstott@a.cs.okstate.edu
>University of Chicago
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."