Empiricist?
[quote]jasmincar wrote:
hey if you are really talented why don’t you try to do music
He does. I believe he has perfect pitch, which is something only 1 out of 10,000 individuals possess and he plays the violin at a professional level.
[/quote]
digitalairair, you managed to hit themes from Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Hegel all in one post. Good show!
I will have to say that the idea of conceptualizing on something pre-linguistically is a bit troubling. There is much debate in philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and epistemology as to the exact function that language plays in our mental lives. The general consensus seems to be that language is necessary for everything above basic intuition (intuition here being used in the Kantian sense-aka perceptions and the faculties that allow us to understand those perceptions, such as space and time).
Using this train of thought, there is very little, basically just sense perception that can be pre-linguistic (and even then you would have to use language, or a more obtuse form of expression-art perhaps, to convey this information to others. Of course, this all operates on the fact that this consensus is right but seeing the direction of the empirical data, I don’t see how this consensus, or something similar to it, could be wrong.
As far as the less than rigorous argument of life and death, how can you call death that which is necessary to creating one’s identity at the present moment? By the process of growing and becoming who you are now, aren’t you in effect keeping the past alive?
Ok, I think that’s all I have time for but digitalairair, I would suggest you look at Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
[quote]mwebb wrote:
digitalairair, you managed to hit themes from Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Hegel all in one post. Good show!
I will have to say that the idea of conceptualizing on something pre-linguistically is a bit troubling. There is much debate in philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and epistemology as to the exact function that language plays in our mental lives. The general consensus seems to be that language is necessary for everything above basic intuition (intuition here being used in the Kantian sense-aka perceptions and the faculties that allow us to understand those perceptions, such as space and time).
Using this train of thought, there is very little, basically just sense perception that can be pre-linguistic (and even then you would have to use language, or a more obtuse form of expression-art perhaps, to convey this information to others. Of course, this all operates on the fact that this consensus is right but seeing the direction of the empirical data, I don’t see how this consensus, or something similar to it, could be wrong.
As far as the less than rigorous argument of life and death, how can you call death that which is necessary to creating one’s identity at the present moment? By the process of growing and becoming who you are now, aren’t you in effect keeping the past alive?
Ok, I think that’s all I have time for but digitalairair, I would suggest you look at Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
[/quote]
Thanks for the feedback. Even though this isn’t true for everyone, I think that some people do tend to do a lot of their thinking in other modes of thoughts besides and beyond spoken language (pictures and emotions and numbers, for example) and certainly there are philosophers who talked about “higher” and more “abstract” forms of thinking that exclude spoken language.
I remember Nietzsche talking about how by using language, we are automatically conformed to a system and that he valued the language of art and music because they somehow go beyond the everydayness and conformity of words and spoken language (not that the language of music and art are not confined within a system, but he tends to think that they are less conformed than words).
Now, I donâ??t doubt that we might blend and incorporate some linguistic elements into other modes of abstract thinking, but I do think that thinking can be done without spoken language and that pre-linguistic realms of thought do permeate certain kinds of thinkers. In fact, I know a lot of people (myself included) that think outside of language first, and then try to find words to â??dubâ?? their pre-linguistic thoughts when they need to communicate their thoughts to others. This is why we often find it hard to express ourselves, even though we know exactly what we meant to say in our minds.
I have a penis, my girlfriend has a vagina and boobs.
Yeah, definitely two different sexes there.
Philosophy fail.
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
I have a penis, my girlfriend has a vagina and boobs.
Yeah, definitely two different sexes there.
Philosophy fail. [/quote]
He’s going to hire a hobo to fuck you in the ass…
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
I have a penis, my girlfriend has a vagina and boobs.
Yeah, definitely two different sexes there.
Philosophy fail. [/quote]
I think he was attempting to explain that gender isn’t as black and white as some seem to think it is, and that many people are simply an amalgamation of a multitude of traits that are classically categorized as either strictly masculine or feminine in nature. These traits them form a uniquely mosaic design that, in turn, ultimately defines the individual in a way that two strict categories doesn’t adequately address with justice.
It’s either that or he legitimately believes we all have little cocks and snatches floating around at the cellular level. In either event, what he is writing sounds deep at a passing skim because he insists on using three words where one will do and is (apparently) under the impression that intelligence is better represented by people being unable to understand your thoughts than it is by being able to distill these bright ideas into more easily-digestible tidbits so that everyone can “get” it… which, in my mind, is a classic example of someone who MAY be of above average intelligence but just isn’t quite the Will Hunting he wants people to think he is.
For a more relevant example, one of the reasons I respect Professor X is because I can’t recall a time where he unnecessarily crammed medical jargon into a weight lifting discussion simply to show off how much he knows about the human body. While it might make him feel superior to have us scrambling for Google, it ultimately detracts from whatever point it is he would be trying to make.
While Yang probably isn’t an idiot, he does write like an douchey Freshman-year philosophy major who is trying too hard to impress his peers.
[quote]digitalairair wrote:
[quote]mwebb wrote:
digitalairair, you managed to hit themes from Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Hegel all in one post. Good show!
I will have to say that the idea of conceptualizing on something pre-linguistically is a bit troubling. There is much debate in philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and epistemology as to the exact function that language plays in our mental lives. The general consensus seems to be that language is necessary for everything above basic intuition (intuition here being used in the Kantian sense-aka perceptions and the faculties that allow us to understand those perceptions, such as space and time).
Using this train of thought, there is very little, basically just sense perception that can be pre-linguistic (and even then you would have to use language, or a more obtuse form of expression-art perhaps, to convey this information to others. Of course, this all operates on the fact that this consensus is right but seeing the direction of the empirical data, I don’t see how this consensus, or something similar to it, could be wrong.
As far as the less than rigorous argument of life and death, how can you call death that which is necessary to creating one’s identity at the present moment? By the process of growing and becoming who you are now, aren’t you in effect keeping the past alive?
Ok, I think that’s all I have time for but digitalairair, I would suggest you look at Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
[/quote]
Thanks for the feedback. Even though this isn’t true for everyone, I think that some people do tend to do a lot of their thinking in other modes of thoughts besides and beyond spoken language (pictures and emotions and numbers, for example) and certainly there are philosophers who talked about “higher” and more “abstract” forms of thinking that exclude spoken language.
I remember Nietzsche talking about how by using language, we are automatically conformed to a system and that he valued the language of art and music because they somehow go beyond the everydayness and conformity of words and spoken language (not that the language of music and art are not confined within a system, but he tends to think that they are less conformed than words).
Now, I donâ??t doubt that we might blend and incorporate some linguistic elements into other modes of abstract thinking, but I do think that thinking can be done without spoken language and that pre-linguistic realms of thought do permeate certain kinds of thinkers. In fact, I know a lot of people (myself included) that think outside of language first, and then try to find words to â??dubâ?? their pre-linguistic thoughts when they need to communicate their thoughts to others. This is why we often find it hard to express ourselves, even though we know exactly what we meant to say in our minds.[/quote]
I understand quite well what you are getting at as it is the seemingly necessary introduction to philosophy. All too frequently does one get the sensation, “I just had the most awesome idea but how in the hell do I express it”. This scenario becomes even more fun in ethical discussions when the budding philosopher makes an argument (almost always it seems to be related to eugenics) and then realizes that the class is staring at him in disgust. This is usually followed up quite quickly with “That sounded a lot better in my head”
This will pass in time. If there is one thing that philosophy forces you to do, it is to become more effective at communication since one must first tackle some exceedingly abstract ideas and then put them into a communicable medium, e.g writing, speech, art, etc.
Getting back to the linguistic for a second. The big debate here seems to be a matter of a priori versus a posteriori. Some will contend that language is an a priori synthesis (Fodor) while many, many others hold that it is a learned (hence a posteriori) skill. I have sympathies for Fodor but assuming I understand his argument (which in all probability is not the case) then it doesn’t hold water. The real question then becomes wether or not the learning of language gives rise to higher faculties or wether attaining higher faculties gives rise to increased understanding of language-a classic Euthyphro scenario. My own feelings on this (this is not my area of specialization so this doesn’t carry that much weight) is that it is a bit of both. We need a certain level of cognitive development to be able to use language better or conceptualize (used in the broadest sense) better and I think to some extent they develop simultaneously. However they inform each other in certain ways, concepts help us convey language better (better emotional delivery through body language, developing more advanced forms of sentence structure) and likewise language helps us to conceptualize better (someone teaching mathematics by using language).
Also, the gender argument is interesting as well although on an empirical level. Many bisexuals report having periods of feeling more homosexual and periods of feeling more heterosexual. This doesn’t really address any particular area of the current discourse, I just thought it was an interesting, kinda related bit of information.