Humble arrogance/Activity
Jan. 28th, 2005 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apolliana"...I make bold to say that there cannot be a single metaphysical problem that has not been solved here, or at least to the solution of which the key has not been provided." Kant
"If a question can be put at all, it can also be answered." W.
"THERE IS NO PROBLEM THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED." Viete
______
(I like men who limit reason. They make reason much easier to understand.)
Hume makes the mind passive with respect to the world. Which probably characterizes most of my experience. But if we want to find anything in the world, we have to apply concepts to it. (And I don't think, against the specter of McDowell which unfortunately is going to loom throughout the Kant course, that concepts are always applied to experience no matter what. How then would there ever be a question what concepts to apply?) And "if there is a ground of intelligibility, then I am that ground. . . . each of us must project our ground in speaking and others must be able to follow that projection" (Affeldt). And if one wants to be thought of as a person with emotions one must be willing to foist one's emotions onto others. It's all about activity, evidently. Activity in which we can find things because the terms we've set allow us to do so. The two dangers are that we apply a given method to objects incommensurable with it and that we will hesitate. For hesitation, regardless of the activity, there is only faith. (Enter tightrope walker and Dumbo.) I don't think that hesitation--or curing it--necessarily teach us to limit a given inquiry to the right kinds of objects; but they can if they lead us to an inquiry into our inquiry. Perhaps we will also discover that we were right to hesitate. Perhaps we will discover that our skepticism stemmed from applying concepts where they don't apply. And perhaps we will decide that both whether we make sense or not and whether we find useful answers is a matter of responsiblity, which has to do with checking, with comparison, with friction.
"If a question can be put at all, it can also be answered." W.
"THERE IS NO PROBLEM THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED." Viete
______
(I like men who limit reason. They make reason much easier to understand.)
Hume makes the mind passive with respect to the world. Which probably characterizes most of my experience. But if we want to find anything in the world, we have to apply concepts to it. (And I don't think, against the specter of McDowell which unfortunately is going to loom throughout the Kant course, that concepts are always applied to experience no matter what. How then would there ever be a question what concepts to apply?) And "if there is a ground of intelligibility, then I am that ground. . . . each of us must project our ground in speaking and others must be able to follow that projection" (Affeldt). And if one wants to be thought of as a person with emotions one must be willing to foist one's emotions onto others. It's all about activity, evidently. Activity in which we can find things because the terms we've set allow us to do so. The two dangers are that we apply a given method to objects incommensurable with it and that we will hesitate. For hesitation, regardless of the activity, there is only faith. (Enter tightrope walker and Dumbo.) I don't think that hesitation--or curing it--necessarily teach us to limit a given inquiry to the right kinds of objects; but they can if they lead us to an inquiry into our inquiry. Perhaps we will also discover that we were right to hesitate. Perhaps we will discover that our skepticism stemmed from applying concepts where they don't apply. And perhaps we will decide that both whether we make sense or not and whether we find useful answers is a matter of responsiblity, which has to do with checking, with comparison, with friction.
