RoR: Forum

Daniel wrote:
>Now, let me guess: perhaps (Regi's) next question is "what do you mean by 'meaning'"?
In which case you will be illustrating my main point with a prime example.

Regi wrote:
>No. My next question is, what are words?

Don't worry, Regi. This example is just as good!

From Dictionary.com
word ( P ) Pronunciation Key (wūrd)
n.

1. A sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing or printing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or of a combination of morphemes.
2. Something said; an utterance, remark, or comment: May I say a word about that?
3. Computer Science. A set of bits constituting the smallest unit of addressable memory.
4. words Discourse or talk; speech: Actions speak louder than words.
5. words Music. The text of a vocal composition; lyrics.
6. An assurance or promise; sworn intention: She has kept her word.
7.
a. A command or direction; an order: gave the word to retreat.
b. A verbal signal; a password or watchword.

8.
a. News: Any word on your promotion? See Synonyms at news.
b. Rumor: Word has it they're divorcing.

9. words Hostile or angry remarks made back and forth.
10. Used euphemistically in combination with the initial letter of a term that is considered offensive or taboo or that one does not want to utter: “Although economists here will not call it a recession yet, the dreaded ‘R’ word is beginning to pop up in the media” (Francine S. Kiefer).
11. Word
a. See Logos.
b. The Scriptures; the Bible.

Happy?

- Daniel

Post 21

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - 5:39pm

Daniel,

After supplying an number of entries from a dictionary, you asked:

Happy?

I'm always happy, but I'm not satisfied with your answer, because its only an evasion.

I asked you what definitions were definitions of. Your answer was, "The meaning of words, of course."

Now either your answer is just so much gibberish, or you intended for me to understand something by the words you used to answer me. I was not asking you for a, "definition," only what you were identifying by the word "word." If you do not know, you were speaking gibberish, and we can forget the rest of this discussion. If you do know, why are you afraid to tell me?

I can read the dictionary. It tells me nothing at all about what you were attempting to say to me. Were you saying something?

Regi

Post 22

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - 5:49pm

G Stolyarov wrote:
>1) (Popper's) essential agreement with the logical positivists has led him to throw metafysics and ethics out of filosofy.

But Mr S, this is just *false*.

Popper's essential *disagreement* with the Logical Positivists was that *they* rejected metaphysics as meaningless, and he *did not*! Your statement could not be more wrong if you tried.

I agree with your other tangentially related remarks about the silly villification of Kant, however.

- Daniel

Post 23

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - 6:00pm

Regi writes:
>I'm not satisfied with your answer, because its only an evasion.

You asked me - in a typically Firehammeresque exercise in pointlessness - "What are words?"

I gave you lots of definitions, or meanings, of the term "word" available in a standard dictionary. I understand them. Do you not? Yet you say I am "evading"? Why? How? What on earth do you *want* me to say? Do you want me to make something up?

My thanks, however, for your continuing demonstration of the timewasting nature of Aristotelian argument.

- Daniel

Post 24

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - 8:20pm

Daniel,

I gave you lots of definitions, or meanings, of the term "word" available in a standard dictionary.

Yes! All of which I was already familiar with and understood very well.

So I thank you for proving you have no idea what you meant by your statement.

Regi

Post 25

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 - 11:18pm

Just to chime in support for Regi (don't worry...I won't make a habit of it), I knew exactly what his next question would be, even before he asked it. It was clear that he was going to ask what a word is. It was the logical next question. That Daniel didn't see it implies that he's not as familiar with the Objectivist position as he thinks.

Post 26

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - 2:48am

Joe writes:
>It was clear that he was going to ask what a word is. It was the logical next question. That Daniel didn't see it implies that he's not as familiar with the Objectivist position as he thinks.

Well, there is certainly no doubt about that!

But having given all the meanings for the word "word" from the dictionary, I can't really see what other meaning "word" has that I'm apparently evading.

- Daniel

Post 27

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - 6:29pm

Greetings.

Mr. Barnes wrote: "Popper's essential *disagreement* with the Logical Positivists was that *they* rejected metaphysics as meaningless, and he *did not*! Your statement could not be more wrong if you tried."

If this is true, then how come Mr. Barnes, the Popperian, allows himself to state the following:

"What is a concept? An error inherited from Plato and Aristotle..."
"Or, better still, read Karl Popper's original brilliant attack on empty Aristotelian windbaggery ..."
"The problem lies, in my view, in Objectivism's adoption of Aristotle's methodology. This method mistakenly places emphasis on *the meanings of words* (ie:definitions), and not on *problems to be solved*. "

Aristotle was the father of objective metafysics; his theory was the first to discover a metafysics based on the real world, rather than the "ideal" world of forms, and Aristotle's rigorous emfasis on definitions stems from this. Definitions are at the root of any metafysics that will even pretend to be worthy of a filosofical component. If you reject the precision of definitions, and denounce the fundamental work of the father of objective metafysics, you are in essence rejecting metafysics itself.

Moreover, how can you or Popper claim to be advocates of metafysics if you consider concepts to be mere "errors"? How do you go about making your metafysical propositions if you refuse to equip yourselves with concepts such as "existence," "identity," "consciousness," "reality," "entity," to name a few.

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 28

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - 7:17pm

Mr Stolyarov writes:
> Definitions are at the root of any metafysics that will even pretend to be worthy of a filosofical component. If you reject the precision of definitions, and denounce the fundamental work of the father of objective metafysics, you are in essence rejecting metafysics itself.

So you assert. And, judging by the quotes you've picked, you have read my arguments for my position. OK - so let's hear a decent *counterargument* then! The best one so far has been by Bill Nevin Jnr (even though it doesn't actually work when you look into it, as I did a few posts back)

I am always open to persuasion! (Otherwise I would simply be a phanatic)

-Daniel

Post 29

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 - 11:40pm

Daniel,

quick question... when you say something like "OK - so let's hear a decent *counterargument* then!", with those little asterisks, are you trying to create the same inflection as if you were to say:

OK - so let's hear a decent counterargument then!

If so, perhaps you might want to consider using italics... It took me awhile to figure out what the asterisks were for, and it impeded the smooth flow of the essay...

I see several people in here doing the asterisk thing for inflection, not just you.

Post 30

Thursday, July 8, 2004 - 1:57pm

Orion wrote:
>If so, perhaps you might want to consider using italics...

Hi Orion,

I figure it must be a Mac thing. I'm running IE 5 on a G4 Powerbook and I don't get any additional formatting (the little message tells me I'm running the "Gimpy Netscape text box" and should upgrade to IE 4 apparently!). So that's why the ASCII-styles. Sorry if that makes it trickier to get through.

But I'm not complaining - I'm *old school* anyway...;-)

- Daniel

Post 31

Thursday, July 8, 2004 - 5:12pm

Daniel,

but are you using italics, and it's coming out as asterisks on my end?

Post 32

Thursday, July 8, 2004 - 6:51pm

Orion writes:
>but are you using italics, and it's coming out as asterisks on my end?

No, I use asterisks cos I don't get any formatting options.

- Daniel

Post 33

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 5:28am

Using a PC we just have to press Ctrl+i (which not everyone is aware of I think), so maybe you can try Apple+i or something.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 7/09, 5:30am)

Post 34

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 7:53am

Daniel,

As I'm typing this message right now, there are a bunch of little rectangular boxes to my right, that have options like "bold", "italics", and so on. You don't get those?

Post 35

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 10:08am

Greetings.

Mr. Barnes wrote: "OK - so let's hear a decent *counterargument* then!"

My counterargument to your position, which would have us focus on "problems" rather than definitions, is that without precise definitions, it is impossible to know what we have to focus on or what a problem actually is!

Moreover, this approach greatly lapses into pragmatism. It focuses narrowly on a given "problem" (whatever that is) and decides to use "whatever works" in order to solve it (whatever "works" may mean; if we do not have a definition, we cannot really know). For example, a "problem"-oriented rather than a definition-oriented approach can state the following: "Why do we need laissez-faire capitalism? Let us presume that intelligent green Martian hippopotamuses demand that all Earthlings adopt laissez-faire capitalism. If all governments do not adopt it, then the hippopotamuses will fly down to Earth and eat everyone. We just have to manufacture evidence of this fenomenon, and enforce the Hippopotamus Cult as a state religious monopoly, which will allow us to liberalize the rest of the economy."

Granted, this is an extreme example, but it shows the trap that anyone who tries to solve a "problem" without having a filosofical structure to build on will fall into. The structure must be firm, interrelated, and encompassing of the most fundamental issues and questions. If a vague approximation seems to "work" in one sense, this tells us nothing about what it will do in another, related sense, unless we discover clear, precise principles that underpin everything in a given subject matter. If anything in the Popperian scheme seems to "work", it is only because of lucky shots in the dark.

For example, imposing the Hippopotamus Cult would entail such a grotesque violation of civil liberties that it would likely outweigh the benefits of achieving laissez-faire capitalism. When pursuing a goal, or a solution to a problem, it is essential never to undermine or betray the foundational concepts which permit such a goal or problem to be properly resolved. Otherwise, a filosofer, scientist, politician, or anyone else, will merely subvert his own initial intentions.

By the way, "problem" is a concept. If a concept is an Aristotelian error, then the belief in the existence of problems must be an error as well. Do you see how Popperian thinking defeats itself?

I am
G. Stolyarov II

Post 36

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 11:45am

Orion, Rodney, Daniel, and everyone else.

Remember the "Browser wars"? Where Netscape had some 90%+ of the market, and Microsoft was trying to get a share, and everyone screamed monopolists!

Well, microsoft added advanced features to there web browswers so you can do cool things like Cnt-i for italics, or add cool buttons on the side like some of you see.

Netscape didn't. In fact, they didn't implement a lot of things. And when they did implement things, they often did it in bad ways, inserting blank pixels where you want, etc. And the older versions of netscape crash if you write your web page wrong. So netscape (and other non IE 4.0+ browsers), have to use the gimpy box, which doesn't get any of the cool formatting.

In addition, Macintosh seems to suck as well. Not only do they do everything different just to piss us off, but they don't support these advanced features.

So if you want to add italics (note: I'm writing this in a gimpy box right now) you have to insert your own html tags. Or call up your local Netscape/Macintosh dealers, and tell them to fix their stuff.

Post 37

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 2:29pm

Daniel wrote:
>But I'm not complaining - I'm *old school* anyway...;-)

Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions re type - I'll try 'em out later, as I'm tied up this weekend. As I say, it wasn't a problem for me, but it it clarifies things it'll be worth doing.

- Daniel

Post 38

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 8:14pm

Joseph,

Thanks for the info. Now I know... and knowing is half the battle!

Post 39

Friday, July 9, 2004 - 8:14pm