on 5/18/00 6:45 PM, JODY PAUL,PIRRET at jpp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> It seems to me that thought and the action of thinking, is more material
> then I have previously realized and so I have reservations when it comes to
> anything that sounds remotely essentialist. When it comes to discussions of
> rationality, practices of transgression, or the formulation of a philosophy,
>
> what is being assumed? Is it being assumed that the individual is free to
> think
> their own thoughts? Or that the individual is performing the operations that
>
> have impacted on them in their life according to its contexts?
>
> It is strange to me that as human beings, our material environment appears
> to be a necessity to thought. I am struggling to grapple with statements
> like
> "I think, therefore, I am" as they are hegemonically a part of Western
> consciousness as I see it. How can Postmodernism not survive when I don't
> believe we have untied the knot forged by modernistic and Enlightened
> thinkers?
Perhaps the point is not the freedom to think (how can that truly be ended?)
but instead the construction of what that freedom means. Rationality defines
a proper way of thinking so that we can "know."
Perhaps we should consider an inversion -- "I think, therefore you are."
Have we confused what we were talking about to begin with? Our "material
environment" certainly provides definitions to thought, but where do we find
our limits? The question of rationality seems to inquire in this direction.
Not how is it that our thought makes us know, but how is it that our
"knowing" makes us think?
---
Asher Haig ahaig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Greenhill Debate Dartmouth 2004
> It seems to me that thought and the action of thinking, is more material
> then I have previously realized and so I have reservations when it comes to
> anything that sounds remotely essentialist. When it comes to discussions of
> rationality, practices of transgression, or the formulation of a philosophy,
>
> what is being assumed? Is it being assumed that the individual is free to
> think
> their own thoughts? Or that the individual is performing the operations that
>
> have impacted on them in their life according to its contexts?
>
> It is strange to me that as human beings, our material environment appears
> to be a necessity to thought. I am struggling to grapple with statements
> like
> "I think, therefore, I am" as they are hegemonically a part of Western
> consciousness as I see it. How can Postmodernism not survive when I don't
> believe we have untied the knot forged by modernistic and Enlightened
> thinkers?
Perhaps the point is not the freedom to think (how can that truly be ended?)
but instead the construction of what that freedom means. Rationality defines
a proper way of thinking so that we can "know."
Perhaps we should consider an inversion -- "I think, therefore you are."
Have we confused what we were talking about to begin with? Our "material
environment" certainly provides definitions to thought, but where do we find
our limits? The question of rationality seems to inquire in this direction.
Not how is it that our thought makes us know, but how is it that our
"knowing" makes us think?
---
Asher Haig ahaig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Greenhill Debate Dartmouth 2004