What could Berkeley have said about Johnsons refutation?

No doubt you believe that because of your vested interest in defending postmodernism.


I refer you to any of the many past interactions we have had on this forum. But considering that your previous efforts at elucidation were equally incoherent, I'm not sure your offer of help is worth much.

So you really don't have a clue !
But well wriggled !

No doubt you believe that because of your vested interest in defending postmodernism.

And no doubt you say that because you haven't got a clue about what you claim I am defending. It needs no defense from me. A well argued defense can be found, for example, in Rorty's "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature"1979.

I can understand you having a vested interest in rejecting attacks on traditional analysis since I gather from previous exchanges that you favor an absolutist attitude to "truth". I don't see how a reciprocal claim can be made about "me" since IT has often expressed, in this forum, a rejection of the concept of a "unified self". On what basis would such a self want to defend any particular output from one of its committee members ? They have conflicting interests and needs.

No doubt you believe that because of your vested interest in defending postmodernism.

Don't tell me you have now descended to the level of chanting Apisa mantras !
If so, I have either overestimated your intellectual abilities, or you are prematurely showing your age.

Just taking a page from your book. You don't think I understand anything you say because I don't agree with your premises, but the same can be said of you. And, as I expected, you don't much like it when the shoe's on the other foot. That's too bad. Of course, if you're ready to address my points without condescendingly concluding that I can't possibly understand you, then I'll do the same.

Baloney !
I have asked you to state an example of what you consider as "incoherent" for examination. You have failed. Nebulous references to previous exchanges don't qualify, as you are well aware. You have displayed neither shoes nor socks nor feet on which to put them.

No doubt you believe that because of your vested interest in defending postmodernism.

How sad. Most of your posts used to be worth reading.

It wasn't all that well wriggled, fresco. As wriggling goes I thought it was pretty corny. It's best claim to excellence is the smoothness of the articulation, which comes from much practice.

It would slot into any debate with a solid click whenever required.

I gather you're giving the Berkeley/Johnson thing a few more rounds. The series of bouts being due to no previous bout having produced a result. A game played in mid-field.

What is missing is in-existence it seems to me. The sensations of reality are not present to have any sensations of reality for extensive periods of time, assuming time can be said to exist, on either side, or in either direction, from this journey through our weary world of woe which the walk J was on, when he kicked the rock, might be said to symbolise. Maybe Boswell, a sound man bye-the-bye, chose the location of the scene for added emphasis thinking that J's snorting in his chair and throwing a book across the study, would not impress his readers as much, because they knew he did that all day long, as having the great man with the gout kick a stone. And if Boswell used that neat conceit to shaft Berkeley all the better then it follows, Boswell being a sound man, that Berkeley was up a gum tree.

But in-existence before our creation is only the same as the in-existence after our passing beyond, or, as the atheist would prefer to say, our death, if there is no beyond to pass to.

(How can five letters of the alphabet ever be arranged better than in that word? No wonder people say that the alphabet is mystical.)

Before our creation, on the night United won the Cup, there are no possibilities of perceptions of sensations or anything else and the matter is inapplicable. But that might not apply after passing across. It is a belief that it does and a belief that it doesn't.

What would either man have said to the idea of doing a survey in Nov. and Dec.of the maternity wards in the catchment area of the team that won the cup. When I was a young man I was told by an insider that there were blips in the graphs at such junctures. A mini bubble so to speak.

Does kicking the stone partake of the same emotion as the Ignore button and the down-thumb? Was J rattled by the possibility of him being a bundle of sensations which he must have felt were immaterial and thus might be destined to pass away into another world/s.

Was Berekeley conjuring a real soul. Not the cliche. Or did he know that people who thought they would go beyond are easier to manipulate and control and as a result are more powerful.

One thing is sure. The debate then was not for hoi polloi.

No. I'm attempting to take a transcendent position that the "debate" was a merely a couple of guys playing language games (a la Wittgenstein) with different sets of rules and goals. Those attempting to indulge in the original debate are somewhat like aspiring time travellers trying to ignore their contemporary social conditioning. Rather than the debate itself, in as much that a transcendent position (whether it be called postmodernist or otherwise) necessarily involves a view of "reality" as negotiable, your phrase "not for the hoi polloi" may be applicable.

You are aware I hope, fresco, that American males of a certain age have been conditioned to believe that they are not conditioned and have worked everything out to their satisfaction from a bawling, mewling and sprawled out start.

I think it is a cultural hangover, a nostalgia maybe, of the Founders who were confident they could organise society with a few rules and regulations they wrote down and signed.

Do you accept that a population feeling itself in possession of a soul is more powerful than one that doesn't? It is irrelevant whether it is deluded or even off its head.

That's the difference between you and me. Your posts were seldom worth reading.

Although this is no criticism of you, I've always perceived you to be very absolutist, indeed I've sense that your logical style is similar to that of the Jesuits I used to know. This matter of cognitive style would be consistent with what I see as your virtually instinctive repulsion of post-modernism's tolerance (indeed enncouragment) of ambiguity and dynamic paradox.

Yes. But I don't believe that manifestation of such a "soul" is permanent. It is evoked/transient and requires a consensus of common purpose as in war situations. Nationality only becomes psychologically significant in adverse situations.

...said an avid biased reader of them !
Where do you get this pugilistic nonsense from ? Are you trying to provide evidence for Spendi's concept of a less palatable aspect of "the American Soul" ?

Let me guess on your knee-jerk response to that..."fresco started it first" ! .

That suggests that flag waving, nationalistic rhetoric and the playing of certain tunes signifies people who feel threatened and anxious.

We most certainly can try. That's what history and the history of philosophy are all about. But once again, we'd have to consult primary sources to reconstruct a response.



So the context? Well no **** it's important! Doesn't take a philosopher to figure that out.



Well the original question does have importance because that's what this thread is all about. It's in the opening thread. Context context context. No one gives a **** about the analysis of the attempt itself. Well, maybe except for you and JL. I was partially interested until people started hijacking the thread for their own "transcendent" purposes.

Spot on !....(and in celebration of winning)