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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (46390)	7/22/1999 1:53:00 PM
From: Achilles	Respond to of 108807

>Marxist - big government Democrat - big government Republican - conservative - libertarian - minarchist - anarchist< I think that in order for such a continuum to have much value, we'd also have to recognize various degrees of gradation between marxist and big gov. democrat, e.g.: marxist, democratic socialist (e.g., Sweden), social democratic (Netherlands), liberal (e.g. Canada), big gov. democrat, etc.

To: Ilaine who wrote (46390)	7/22/1999 6:49:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

It is impossible for me to believe that anyone can view events in any other way than subjectively. Okay, Blue, now you've done it! You've opened a real can of worms! <gg> In other words, you have raised a truly interesting question. However, it seems to me that you are close to advocating the most thorough-going solipsism. I do not get much of a lead from your references. Wittgenstein is one of those philosophers I have read about, but not read; I don't know anything about the Sapir-Whorff hypothesis except that it has something to do with Eskimos and the way language shapes thought; and I have read little in the field of anthropology. (I did see Rashomon, however.) What this boils down to is that I am not quite sure where you are coming from on this question. And God knows that it has kept legions of philosophers occupied for centuries! So, let me just take the much-maligned common-sense approach. Of course, we view things "subjectively." But only subjectively? And of course people often can't agree on the facts of a situation (Rashomon; courtroom). But is that true of all facts? And so forth. Can't we make distinctions like the following? 1-a) Objective statement: "I put the roast into the oven, and it will be ready in an hour and a half (unless the electricity goes off, or the stove breaks down, or some emergency calls me away and I have to turn the stove off, or some unpredicted natural or man-made catastrophe occurs)." 1-b) Subjective statement: "I cooked a roast today, and it tastes just terrible." 2-a) Objective statement: In elections today, the Democrats took 18 seats and the Republicans took 12 seats. 2-b) Subjective statement: "The Republicans took only 12 seats today, but if that scandal involving Candidate Y had not been broken in the media, they would have done much better." 3-a) Objective statement: Mr. Z committed suicide. 3-b) Subjective statement: Any theory explaining why he did so. Take another question. Suppose you wanted an explanation of P. Mr. A knows all the specific factual details that can be established about P, and develops an overall interpretation that seems to explain those facts without resorting to speculation. Mr. B knows very little about P, and develops a theory that is entirely based on speculation. Wouldn't you be more likely to credit Mr. A, to consider him more objective than Mr. B, even if not completely objective? Or still another question. Mr. Y is an anarchist. I am a monarchist. Our political views are simply not compatible. Mr. Y. has written a book about Louis XVI. I disagree violently with his interpretation of Louis XVI's character and of his fate. But his book contains a great deal of valuable detail -- which I also know to be accurate -- about the social conditions of the time. Do I dismiss the solid data Mr. Y provides as "subjective" because I disagree with his "subjective" interpretation or his "subjective" overall philosophy? And so on. Joan