The Radical Academy Discussion Forum
Philosophy, Politics, and the Human Condition
|
||
| Search For Similar Forums · Return to Website | ||
 First |
 Prev |
 Reply |
 Home |
Next  |
Last  |
| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 6) |
| Author | Comment |
Kevin
 Aug 26, 07 - 12:03 AM |
Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
APPRECIATING IVO DESPITE HIS IRRELEVANCE "On Enthymeme" As Aristotle argues, we must appreciate our predecessors (and opponents KB), so that we can learn from their wisdom, if any, and avoid their errors, if any. In my case, by listening to Ivo's errors and many irrelevancies and in attempting to formulate REFUTATIONS of the errors; while commenting upon the irrelevancies (which, incidentally, distract one from refuting the errors); I read Raymond J. McCall's BASIC LOGIC for about the 10th time. And VOILA, I finally, I think, LEARNED the NATURE of the fallacies of (1) Illicit Major, (2) Illicit Minor and (most importantly) (3) UNDISTRIBUTED MIDDLE, which had "escaped me" unless pointed out to me by actual logicians in their technical language. I have only debated with one ACTUAL LIVING LOGICIAN on James Miquez's "Thomism" site at Yahoo. That fellow could point out one of my errors, in terms of MODERN SYMBOLIC LOGIC's obscure (to me) terminology. Then I went to both Maritain's and McCall's LOGIC TEXTS to confirm (initially refute; which was not possible) his criticism in (to me) more FAMILIAR grammar. When the living logician caught me in an error, Maritain and McCall both CONFIRMED THE ERROR and explained it to me in more familiar terminology. Then I began to be able to catch the living modern LOGICIAN in one or two of his errors from modern SL, which seemed to annoy Miquez (probably because he didn't understand what either of us were arguing about), who began to suppress MOST OF MY POSTS. Hence, my arrival at this site --- although I'd rather discuss Aquinas's Theology and philosophical arguments in support thereof than anything. So, thanks to you, Ivo, for encouraging me to reread McCall's LOGIC text, because something "clicked" with this latest reading. Being "over 50" makes it very difficult to learn new things [in my case, actually old and well understood (by others) things]. However, as Aristotle also teaches, old people "MEAN TO HARM" their adversaries, young people, for the most part, MEAN TO PLAY with (tease; or insult; but not harm) their adversaries and middle aged men, in their prime, can DO WHAT THEY CHOOSE (ridicule; dismiss; harm) with their adversaries, depending upon their temperamental dispositions, powers (or lack of power) and influence. But in DEBATE, the term "harm" is equivalent to "refutation" --- and there is NO ACTUAL HARM in a refutation, except to a refuted argument. As to the refuted person he or she either LEARNS something from a refutation or becomes angry, annoyed or "dizzied" (ie. like some of Socrates's actual friends acknowledge in Plato's Dialogues) by a material or a formal refutation. Enuff said on the above irrelevant (to Ivo; since Ivo is apparently only beginning LOGIC studies) points. The simple point is, once again according to the Law of Contradiction, the contradiction of (1) a fallacy or a (2) falsehood is (1a) reasonable or (2a) truth. Of course, simply contradictiong a fallacious conclusion, is not the same thing as UNDERSTANDING the "faulty-mechanics" of the fallacy. But McCall helped me with (vaguely) understanding the faulty mechanics. So thanks are in order to BOTH Ivo and Ray McCall (who learned LOGIC from all of Maritain, Aristotle and Aquinas). Back to Ivo beginning with the last of his post first, quote: IVO: As Dr Adler says on p. 212 of “The Great Ideas”, the rules of good discussion are easy enough to state […]. And I [Adler] think they are just as easy to understand. But the hard thing to do, says Adler, is to follow them. That’s also applicable to both of us, I think. And certainly to me Ivo Cerckel REPLY: SQUARE: Let "NFDR" symbolize "non-follower-of-discussion-rules". Hence... Each is a "NFDR" (?) vs. Neither is a "NFDR" (False) Ivo is a "NFDR"(TRUE) & Kevin is NOT a "NFDR" (?). This may be an invalid "square" given the "small sample" (only 2 persons) and the quantifiers "each, neither", which arguably function with conjunctions (?). What would Ivo posit for the truth values of the positions marked with "?" marks? The truth values he ought to assert are certainly THOUGHT after his Adler-quote. How would Ivo handle the truth values of the remainder of the "square" or, alernatively, criticize its validity??? contd. Kevin |
|
Kevin
Aug 26th, 2007 - 12:16 AM |
Re: Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
IVO (previously from "enthymeme": Please note also that 1. your posts are sometimes very long and it’s not also easy to discern your questions. REPLY: My posts are long, but the questions you refuse to answer are short, easy to discern and easy to answer. eg. 1. Do you see your eyes? 2. Do you see your ideas? 3. What Surah of the Koran mentions INSTINCT? These are all easy questions to discern and to answer. But none of them have been answered. And none of my posts are anywhere near as lengthy as the non-Aristotle books and articles you quote and cite. IVO: 2. as YOU ARGUE that, if we follow Kant, the bureaucrats of the National Socialist German government had to NEGATE the orders of their superiors on the basis of categorical imperative (which can be formulated as ‘always consider a human being as a purpose [you mean AN END not a purpose, KB;] not a means’). ON THE CONTRARY: I never "argued" that position. I told you that YOU cannot blame Kant for their behaviour, given one of his so-called "maxims". Then I told you that the bureaucrats of the Nazi regime all KNEW very well that if they DISOBEYED (not "negated") Nazi ORDERS, then they would find themselves shot or in the same boat as concentration camp inmates (jailed; shot; gassed; experimented upon; jailed as political prisoners, etc.). If they were Nazi military members, then disobeying ORDERS meant being "shot" in war time. Same thing with OUR military people. Disobeying wartime Orders, justifies summary execution, of any military person, NAZI or otherwise. So they didn't DISOBEY their orders --- being immoral CONSEQUENTIALISTS, rather than idealistic (idiotic?) "non-consequentialists", like Kant. I think that I more fully argued that YOU CANNOT FAULT Kant or criticize Hannah Arendt for "the holocaust" (or reflections thereon by Ms. Arendt), since Kant was dead about 140 years before the holocaust and Arendt "argued" that even the categorical imperative can be perverted. WELL, DUH!!! For the umpteenth time, (ARISTOTLE) "MAN, when perfected by Law and Justice is the best animal, but when bereft of Law and Justice, he is the worst." which is WHY I actually argued that Kant's "deontological ethics" is nothing other than an obscure regurgitation of the "golden rule" without consequences, such as a final judgment (from God) for disobeying it! GOLDEN RULE:- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I also argued that NUREMBOURG ought to have featured the philosophy- professors, theologians, judges, lawyers, scientists, industrialists and "cops" (of immediately "Pre-Nazi" Germany) on trial, instead of Hitler's thugs, who should have been summarily tried and shot for violations of the Geneva Conventions "governing" the conduct of war. That might have done some good. However the Americans and Russians, respectively, wanted German and German-Jewish "rocket scientists" (who did understand "dinge 'n sich" and NOT Kant's "philosophy" or "deontology") more than criminal trials for them (charged with complicity and collusion with various and sundry Nazi-thugs). There were a couple of more arguments, mentioning Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Darwin's survival of the fittest. But to put it simply:- Kant wasn't issuing the orders and nobody with any common sense believes Kant anyway --- including German people with common sense and the enineering skill, science and technology to transform material elements and "dinge 'n siche" into other things like a "BLITZ KRIEG WAR MACHINE", even if they don't care about (or, worse, DO agree with) the "ethics" or "morality" of the guys who are actually in charge of RUNNING a "total-war-machine". Duh. The "rational consequence" of so-called Kantian "critical idealism" is the emergence of either sceptical or atheistic existentialism, or, alternatively, EXHAUSTION. But if you've got tenure in a sophistry department, you are required to regurgitate all of it, including Kant. Kant's "philosophy" is almost a mirror image reversal and inversion of Aristotle's philosophy. On Kant's version the virtual image in the mirror is what we know/see and the guy standing outside the mirror is unknowable but probably/possibly there, while the mirror is actually inside one's own (virtual) head (BOINNGGG!) Even Bismark sneared at Kantians before WWI, while actually BUILDING the Germany which Herr Hitler inherited, after Woodrow Wilson's naive experiment called the Weimar Republic ended in, first, an economic disaster and secondly a political disaster. "Politics", sneared Bismark, "IS the ART of THE POSSIBLE!" (thereby ridiculing Kantian-mantras such as, "Is knowledge possible?"; "Is metaphysics possible?", "Is there a grundlegung of morals?", etc. etc.). In sum, practical people ridicule Kant and "Kantians". But anyone who reads Kant begins to think like him, whether they hate him or admire him BECAUSE what goes into the mind comes back out. more... KB |
|
Kevin
Aug 26th, 2007 - 12:28 AM |
Re: Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
IVO: I asked you in my bureaucracy –post Aug 18, 07 - 3:28 PM http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/716975 , still in the hypothesis that WE FOLLOW KANT, on what basis the categorical imperative is “superior” to the order of the superior (who, the latter, has also to take the categorical imperative into account). REPLY: NOBODY NEED TAKE ANY LAW INTO ACCOUNT. The phenomenon is called FREE WILL --- the capacity to obey or to disobey alleged laws, AT WILL. Do you actually think that Adolph Hitler, Goering or Joe Goebels cared a "fig" for, or agreed with, anything that Immanuel Kant ever wrote? Or even myself for that matter? Kant's statements are false, but many of his conclusions do follow, to half-parody and half-paraphrase Aristotle. Little errors in the beginning have consequences. Arguably Goebels was the only one of those Nazi "guys" (Goering; Hitler; etc.) who may possibly have read Kant because NOBODY can find LIES (that I know of) in anything Goebels ever wrote. [Same thing with Eichmann, as far as I know. He didn't lie either. He just obeyed his orders, without regard to the consequences --- good Kantian that he was. He didn't believe the Nazi propaganda, but did CONFORM HIS WILL to that of his superiors. He must have forgot the "END IN HIM/HERSELF" stuff of Kant. But Kant is a hard guy to "get all of", let alone obey, with an "Eichmann-I.Q." of probably 110, intellectually-speaking and a moral I.Q. of around "10", when speaking ethically]. Back to Goebels, the Freiberg University (?) Graduate (Ph.D.? "DOCTOR"? Goebels). People can see dubious reasoning and false conclusions, which do "follow", in his stuff, but no, or very few, LIES, because Goebels only spoke and wrote in terms of "total-war-morality", "territorial imperatives", "loyalty to the Fuhrer and the fatherland", "Reich enemies", etc., followed by several "rousing chorouses" of Seig...Heil! He certainly wasn't LYING about "Reich enemies", at any rate. Kantian RHETORIC is absolutely non-existent compared with Hitler's and Joe Goebels's rhetorical stuff. As Adler argues, PHILOSOPHY is important. I would add that FALSE CONTRARY "philosophies" leave people so confused that books like MEIN KAMPF make more "sense" than false contraries of various kinds. Oh! That WAS one of my previous arguments. In short and in sum, THERE IS NO BASIS TO KANT'S CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE (other than an obscurantized "golden rule" with no "theological-teeth" in it; not that such "teeth" have ever "overawed" those who sleep-in-the-pews or are "nominal", but not actual, "believers".) If it wasn't for the METHODISM of some "English guy" (I forget whom), the tractarian movement of John Henry Newmann and friends, along with the UTILITARIANISM of J.S. Mill, England would have gone down the same bogus "theological and philosophical" path as Germany, with atheists "teaching theology" and liars "teaching philosophy". The Brits took the "middle road" with sceptics in the theology departments and sophists in the philosophy departments and tractarians on every other corner. I love the Brits. Even when they are CONTRARIAN, they are contrarians in amusingly eccentric ways and styles, which is WHY I love Uncle Bertie Russell, (although I seriously DOUBT anything/everything he ever wrote). Even today they are still apparently "eccentric", as recently documented on this list, in MANUEL's Insanity post. eg. British Oxford-don "philosophers" get their presumptions and "philosophical wonder" from science fiction movies, like the Matrix, and their arguments from a "philosophy of mind" which attribute consciousness to little bits of melted sand overlaid with gold foil and plugged into 240 volt (?) AC power sources. We have 120 volt sources in N.A. Is England 24O or 120 Volts? Somebody should plug that "philosopher" into a wall plug as an experiment to see how well he "thinks" under the influence of such voltages, while making sure that he is not grounded since current flow and high voltage disparities are lethal to hydrocarbon based life forms. RHETORICAL QUESTION: How can a Kantian "non-existent-fiction" be "superior" to even a strong willed little German corporal, who practiced his RHETORIC in front of an actual mirror until he got it RIGHT? FINAL COMMENT (on this point): Germany and "Europe" got the government they deserved because of the "philosophies" they espoused/adopted --- a "thousand year Reich" which lasted 5 years (too long). More "Kantian" non-sense to follow. KB |
|
Kevin
Aug 26th, 2007 - 12:42 AM |
Re: Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
IVO: I apologise for having been guilty of enthymeme by not answering your questions. COMMENT: Enthymeme is an argument. It is not the lack of an answer to a question. But since the minor and major terms of an argument are EVIDENT in the concluding premise of any actual enthymeme, or syllogism (major term being the predicate; minor term being the subject), one is given 2 of 3 syllogistic TERMS in the conclusions of both enthymemes and of syllogisms. And since one of the premises is usually also provided in actual enthymemes (and is, hence, also as EVIDENT as the conclusion), then, if you know Aristotle's DOCTRINE (some people say "theory") of the SYLLOGISM, you can infer the missing premise of either a logical or a fallacious enthymeme. That is because both the provided premise and the missing premise SHOULD have a common MIDDLE term. Hence, you are literally GIVEN all 3 terms of a full syllogism. With "rhetorical enthymeme" the missing premise is usually COMMON KNOWLEDGE to both a rhetorician and his audience (ie. when a Rhetorician knows his ART), which is WHY a competent rhetorician does not mention the missing premise, especially when he/she is employing a fallacious enthymeme. In short, NO APOLOGY is either necessary or relevant to "enthymeme" when one does not answer a question. Obviously SILENCE is entirely irrelevant to anything like an actual ENTHYMEME, which is a truncated form of argument. In sum, NOBODY is a silent arguer, for a "silent arguer" is a contradiction-in-terms. IVO: Aug 23rd, 2007 - 1:49 AM Re: Enthymeme Let me now return to Adler’s chapter on “Logic’s Little Words” which in the Touchstone edition covers pp. 139 – 150. Let me just quote the meaning (You mean WORDS; not "meaning"; words are not meanings; ideas are meanings KB) of final paragraph of the chapter as I understand it: The kind of compressed argument that omits or conceals indispensable premises, Aristotle called “enthymeme”. REPLY: IRRELEVANT to contradiction and only obliquely relevant to syllogism. You should really try to understand the first few words and paragraphs of the Chapter (of which you "skipped" to the end) which begin with... ADLER: As Newton's name is associated with the Law of Gravitation (everything falls at an acceleration rate of 32feet/sec/sec in a "1-G" field of gravity KB), so Aristotle's is associated with the law of contradiction. As Einstein's name is associated with the Theory of Relativity, so Aristotle's is associated with the theory of syllogism... (snip 13 paragraphs, then...) When a person we are CONVERSING with CONTRADICTS himself or herself or makes CONTRARY statements, we have every right to stop him and say, "You cannot make both of those statements. Both cannot be true. Which of the two do you really mean? Which do you want to claim as true?" [Dr. M.J. Adler; ARISTOTLE FOR EVERYBODY; Ch. 17; end of 14th pgph] COMMENT: More correctly one should say:- You ought not to make both of those statements since they are contradictory. People CAN and DO contradict themselves. But they OUGHT NOT do that, if they want to be believed the next time they say something. My Chapter 17 runs from page 128 to page 138 in the Bantam Books edition of 1980-1983. You "drove against a car" when you were 20 "because you learned the cause of your handicap in law school." But, some drunk driver drove against you, "because" he was intoxicated, according to a Court which learned ALL THE FACTS and sent the intoxicated driver to jail. Those statements can't BOTH be true, Ivo, which is probably WHY you skipped to the end of the Chapter. Aristotle repetitively argues that knowing a FACT is one thing, but knowing a fact and the CAUSE of a fact constitutes REAL KNOWLEDGE. So when anyone states a FACT and its CAUSE, they have something closer to what Aristotle called KNOWLEDGE than mere opinion. You stated a FACT and its CAUSE, Ivo:- I drove against a car BECAUSE I had learned the truth of my handicap in law school. That is your APORIA. You can't get away from that FACT and REASON simply because a dumb drunk was blamed and jailed for you "driving against him". He probably should have been fined and his driver's licence removed for "driving drunk". But you are the guy who should have been jailed rather than given a "nice settlement" from the drunk's insurers. At any rate NOW WE KNOW WHY DRIVER'S INSURANCE RATES are so high. Those who OBEY LAW and pay mandatory insurance (without causing accidents) pay for collisions between drunks and those with "acrasia" or temporary loss/es of "REASON". Had Ivo TOLD THE TRUTH in Court, "society" may have fined the drunk and taken away his licence, thereby GETTING MONEY and also FINED Ivo for causing the accident and taken away his licence. "Society" would "win" again. But instead "society" paid to incarcerate the wrong guy for CAUSING an accident he did NOT cause. Kevin |
|
Kevin
Aug 26th, 2007 - 1:18 AM |
Re: Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
FORMERLY: At any rate NOW WE KNOW WHY DRIVER'S INSURANCE RATES are so high. Everybody who abides by the rules of the road pays for collisions between drunks and those who have temporarily lost their "reason". WORD TO THE WISE: I have never run into a Kantian "scholar", whether critic or disciple, who does NOT develop almost "instant amnesia" when caught in a CONTRADICTION. Very remarkable. There is a reason for that, too, according to Aristotle:- The human SOUL becomes what it THINKS. If you read Kant, your mind (Aristotle would say soul) becomes "Kantian", unless you have "something-in-there" which is CONTRARY or radically CONTRADICTORY to Kant's theses, maxims and ideas. Emphasis on RADICALLY CONTRADICTORY. Perhaps we have the reason for the name of the RADICAL Academy. RADICALLY opposed to so-called "modern philosophy" from the 17th and 18th centuries, which isn't very "modern" at all. MORE IVO ON KANT (from enthymeme): (Later) Kant gave in the Critique of Pure Reason his famous table of judgments from which Kant infers 12 categories. COMMENT: Aristotle cites 10 simple Categories or Predicables; the usual 9 strict accidents predicated of individual SUBSTANCE (1st Category). Secondary substance is a 10th predicable. ie Genera/Species are predicable of primary substance; eg Socrates is Homo Sapiens, or in "tranliterated-Greek" Socrates is Anthropos. Then, in THE TOPICS Aristotle cites the 4 "families of predicables" (Predicabilia according to the medievals, who added a 5th "Predicabilia" = difference) to wit, (1) Genus (2) Definition (3) Property and (4) strict-Accident/s. Since the strict accidents of (4) are the same as the 9 simple predicable Categories, while the Genus and Species are predicable of individuals, Aristotle arguably had about 11 or 12 CATEGORIES/predicables like Kant. But Kant's first category is QUANTITY, I think. I also think Kant has a separate "Category" for space, which Aristotle placed in the Category of QUANTITY, calling space a "dimensive (geometrical) Quantity" if memory serves. But this "stuff" is all over the place. Ivo is running around from enthymemes to syllogisms, to syllogistic figures, to terms in Kant's Categories. Aristotle calls such a procedure "lisping" --- using names without knowing their meanings. Of course, the incoherence is CAUSED by confusing KANT with Aristotle and equally confusing their uses of the SAME (translated) TERMS with diametrically OPPOSED-meanings in some instances. As I said previously MIRROR IMAGE REVERSAL/inversion. IVO: Aug 23rd, 2007 - 1:45 AM Re: Enthymeme 5. Let me try to translate some of what Crabbé is writing: p. 1 Traditions get lost. (etc. snipped)... COMMENT: And some traditions are unknown or not understood very well. Crabbe seems to know what he is talking about, courtesy of Ivo's translation from French (I think it was French). But I don't think Ivo knows, because of all his "skipping" around, without reading Dr. Adler's Chapter 17, slowly, closely and carefully enough --- a few rereads, by Ivo seem to be required, because Dr. Adler clearly spells out how Aristotle goes from terms, to propositions to syllogisms, ending with a very short section on "enthymemes" (implied or suggested syllogisms with a missing, but clearly implied, premise, OR, less commonly, 2 clever premises where the conclusion is left to the listener). IVO: I should not have lost this out of sight. REPLY: You mean "I should not have lost sight" of the information provided. We probably have a little bit of a language barrier, here, methinks, although your English, French and German are vastly superior to my lack of BOTH French and German You may be able to get Maritain's PETITE LOGIQUE in French, Ivo. But you have to TRY TO LISTEN MORE CAREFULLY TO DR. ADLER, first, since Adler was Maritain's student. Americans like 30 second commercials --- short and sweet is their "motto". In other words, if you can't say it in 20 seconds during a Super Bowl Commercial, is it really worth saying at all?!!! In 3 words:- SHORT ATTENTION SPANS. IVO (previously): 1. I do hereby TRY to reply to your replies in Re: Barbara. REPLY: O.K. Reading Dr. Adler some more may help. I have been reading Aristotle, again and again, given Dr. Adler's encouragement (from that book we have, in common), since around 1988 or 1989. Much of Aristotle's stuff is very intelligible to medical people, especially his 4 CAUSES OF BEING (formal cause, material cause, efficient cause and final cause). But the LOGIC "stuff" is quite difficult, without a close reading of THE CATEGORIES --- and that is just the LOGIC of mere terms or words, let alone propositions and syllogisms. Good luck or "Bon chance" (maybe?) as Quebecers in my country say. Thanks again for encouraging me to reread some "Aristotelian/McCallian" LOGIC. KEVIN   
|
|
Ivo
Aug 26th, 2007 - 8:31 AM |
Re: Appreciating Ivo Despite his Irrelevance "On Enthymeme"
1. Kevin says: My posts are long, but the questions you refuse to answer are short, easy to discern and easy to answer. eg. 1. Do you see your eyes? 2. Do you see your ideas? 3. What Surah of the Koran mentions INSTINCT? These are all easy questions to discern and to answer. But none of them have been answered. And none of my posts are anywhere near as lengthy as the non-Aristotle books and articles you quote and cite. 2. Ivo replies; 2.1. I understood the first two questions as being rhetorical. 2.2. In the opening post of Re: environmental humanism Aug 14, 07 - 6:31 PM http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/716212 Kevin has recognised that I have replied to the third question. Kevin writes: QUESTION (of Ivo): To what Surah of the Koran ("Recital"), do you refer? IVO: The Opening Chapter of the Qur'an (Al Fatihah, I think). 3. Did I overlook Kevin’s reply to my bureaucracy post? http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/716975 As Kevin argues that, if we follow Kant, the bureaucrats of the National Socialist German government had to negate the orders of their superiors on the basis of categorical imperative (which can be formulated as ‘always consider a human being as a purpose not a means’), I asked Kevin in that post, still in the hypothesis that we follow Kant, on what basis the categorical imperative is “superior” to the order of the superior (who, the latter, has also to take the categorical imperative into account). In the opening post of Re: Enthymeme Aug 23, 07 - 1:49 AM http://pub13.bravenet.com/forum/1108592048/show/717747 I reminded Kevin already of this absence of response to my bureaucracy post. |
| First |
Prev |
Reply |
Home |
Next |
Last |
bravenet.com