Peter Rugh wrote:
> Coherentism, our heroes of turgid moral reasonableness, most of whom shine like
> champions of Kant's logic (i.e., Kant's book, "A Manual for Lectures", devoted
> specifically to "his" logic, four years before he died) simply ask how the
> universe of truths can be made intelligible, with an audience begging them to
> relent (and lecturers lining up for lessons).
> [...]
> Don't get messed up with banter, I guess. You can email me personally, if you
> like. If the champs want to have it their way, that's all they'll get, I think.
Couldn't one address this problem in slightly more interesting terms?
It seems to me that there is no reason to posit it as a dichotomy between
"turgid moral reasonableness" and "banter" which should be "emailed you
personally". It is not the case that all regulation has to be turgid,
authoritarian regulation -- at least I sincerely hope it isn't. Isn't the
main theme of Foucault's quest, or Deleuze's quest, or Guattari's, precisely
how we could regulate our collective life without authoritarian rule?
The way a living organism regulates itself? And it certainly _does_ regulate
itself; otherwise there would be no life. How can one make a list that is
a living thing, that has the kind of coherence a living thing has -- not
the coherence of "coherentism", but coherence nonetheless? A list that
makes one's juices flow? A list that is like good music, a good jam session?
That, too, has to have coherence, but the coherence doesn't have to be that
of a symphony orchestra, which Cage described as "so many riders riding on
a single horse". If we cannot collectively create a satisfying email list,
I despair that we can create _any_ satisfying social arrangement.
-m
> Coherentism, our heroes of turgid moral reasonableness, most of whom shine like
> champions of Kant's logic (i.e., Kant's book, "A Manual for Lectures", devoted
> specifically to "his" logic, four years before he died) simply ask how the
> universe of truths can be made intelligible, with an audience begging them to
> relent (and lecturers lining up for lessons).
> [...]
> Don't get messed up with banter, I guess. You can email me personally, if you
> like. If the champs want to have it their way, that's all they'll get, I think.
Couldn't one address this problem in slightly more interesting terms?
It seems to me that there is no reason to posit it as a dichotomy between
"turgid moral reasonableness" and "banter" which should be "emailed you
personally". It is not the case that all regulation has to be turgid,
authoritarian regulation -- at least I sincerely hope it isn't. Isn't the
main theme of Foucault's quest, or Deleuze's quest, or Guattari's, precisely
how we could regulate our collective life without authoritarian rule?
The way a living organism regulates itself? And it certainly _does_ regulate
itself; otherwise there would be no life. How can one make a list that is
a living thing, that has the kind of coherence a living thing has -- not
the coherence of "coherentism", but coherence nonetheless? A list that
makes one's juices flow? A list that is like good music, a good jam session?
That, too, has to have coherence, but the coherence doesn't have to be that
of a symphony orchestra, which Cage described as "so many riders riding on
a single horse". If we cannot collectively create a satisfying email list,
I despair that we can create _any_ satisfying social arrangement.
-m