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Metaphysical Statements
Apr. 2nd, 2006 06:41 pmThings I agree with:
"If we are to help, if we are to understand, someone who now suddenly says that nothing is in the future, nothing in the past, or that good and evil is an illusion, then we must join him in his projected enquiry, however extravagent and even pathological it may seem. And we shall always find, I believe, that it is not for nothing that these strange things are said, that there is indeed truth in them however insignificant for practice it may be and however distorted and confused is the form in which it is presented. For these strange pronouncements which purport to throw doubt upon all statements of some familiar sort, for instance statements about good and evil or statements about the past or the future, are always promoted by the speaker's having come to notice some real idiosyncracy in the way in which all statements of the sort in question are established or refuted. . . A metaphysical philosopher may show us in some species of enquiry some feature not unknown to us and yet unremarked" (John Wisdom, Paradox and Discovery, 119-120).
"I believe that if, faced with the extraordinary pronouncements of metaphysicians, we avoid asking them to define their terms, but instead press them to present us with instances of what they refer to contrasted with instances of what they do not refer to, then their pronouncements will no longer appear either as obvious falsehoods or mysterious truths or pretentious nonsense, but as often confusingly presented attempts to bring before our attention certain not fully recognized and yet familiar features of how in the end questions of different types are met. These are features without which the questions or statements of the type in question would not be themselves. And they are features which can seldom or never be safely or vividly brought to mind by the use of general terms" (ibid, 101-102).
( Things I am puzzled about: )
"If we are to help, if we are to understand, someone who now suddenly says that nothing is in the future, nothing in the past, or that good and evil is an illusion, then we must join him in his projected enquiry, however extravagent and even pathological it may seem. And we shall always find, I believe, that it is not for nothing that these strange things are said, that there is indeed truth in them however insignificant for practice it may be and however distorted and confused is the form in which it is presented. For these strange pronouncements which purport to throw doubt upon all statements of some familiar sort, for instance statements about good and evil or statements about the past or the future, are always promoted by the speaker's having come to notice some real idiosyncracy in the way in which all statements of the sort in question are established or refuted. . . A metaphysical philosopher may show us in some species of enquiry some feature not unknown to us and yet unremarked" (John Wisdom, Paradox and Discovery, 119-120).
"I believe that if, faced with the extraordinary pronouncements of metaphysicians, we avoid asking them to define their terms, but instead press them to present us with instances of what they refer to contrasted with instances of what they do not refer to, then their pronouncements will no longer appear either as obvious falsehoods or mysterious truths or pretentious nonsense, but as often confusingly presented attempts to bring before our attention certain not fully recognized and yet familiar features of how in the end questions of different types are met. These are features without which the questions or statements of the type in question would not be themselves. And they are features which can seldom or never be safely or vividly brought to mind by the use of general terms" (ibid, 101-102).
( Things I am puzzled about: )
