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Re: [ox-en] Germ of a new form of society ? [Philosophical Investigation]



Hi Niall,

On 30/01/04 23:16 Niall Douglas wrote:

On 30 Jan 2004 at 3:31, Adam Moran wrote:

Why I harp on about the Greeks so much is because I find in them a
striking similarity also in the self / other, *I*/*We* method of
investigational which occur across the lists I'm on, and suspect that
we are experiencing the same phenomenon.


Greek philosophy is good for gaining an interest, but it's riddled with logical typing errors. As Bertrand Russell said, most of the questions they posed are solvable with rigourous application of logic. I would recommend reading it once or twice, then moving on.

I like the 'typing errors' metaphor, and Russell's 'logic' metaphor also ;) - simply inspired !

When Russell convinced Moore to change his course of studies from classics to philosophy it was to lead an attack on Idealism, particularly that of Bradley.

"He [Moore] took the lead in rebellion, and I followed, with a sense of emancipation" writes Russell [1]

When Moore compiled his *Philosophical Studies* (1922) he left out quite a lot of his early articles. This is extract from an article about *Truth* in Baldwin's *Dictionary* :

"Once it is definitely recognized that the proposition is to denote not a belief (in the psychological sense), it seems plain that it differs in no respect from the reality to which it is supposed merely to correspond, i.e. the truth that *I exist* differs in no respect from the reality to which it is supposed merely to corresponding reality *my existence*"

 W.B. Yeats writes:

 "I find your brother [Moore] extraordinarily obscure" to T.S. Moore

... and Yeats was no slouch.

To this I would add, not half as obscure as Russell; this is an extract from one of his more lucid writings:

"It is plain that when we validly infer one proposition from another, we do so in virtue of a relation which holds between the two propositions whether we perceive it or not"

Russell like Moore and Husserl distinguishes sharply between logic and psychology.

To be honest I never really delved into any of the above authors in any detail, except Yeats. Moore's early writings to me summed up where he was driving Russell to go:

"The 'concept' is neither a mental fact nor any part of a mental fact." Mind 1899

No doubt in Moore's mind, the 'concept' is what, *in our thinking*, we take as our *object*: but if the 'concept' did not exist independently of our thinking, there would be nothing for us to think about ?

Like the Platonic form, which it closely resembles, the 'concept' is eternal and immutable. "Same old same-old" as we say around here.

... But since you think there is something in Russell, no doubt there is. I shall give him further thought. Imagine that he was alive today, and on Oeukonux - would unicode be up to the job !


Oh ... I've remembered what the point of this email was - its come
from your Ecosystem thread ... On the 28-01-04  you wrote:

 > Software development is an ecosystem


Hmm, and yours was the only reply :(

I know, this surprised me too. If its any consolation I don't get many replies either :( - I got two replies to my CRISmas Carol and they both can be summed up with one phrase: "Same old same-old".

Never-the-less, I think you are on to something when you talk in terms of ecosystems; I mumble too in terms of whole entities and wish to theorise on how they develop from immature to mature forms [2]. This, to me, is based on an Aristotle's material cause in contrast to Plato's formal cause.

May be a good question to resolve before starting any serious debate would be:

 What are the boundaries of the ecosystem in your mind ?

... and another ...

 What are the boundaries of the ecosystem in my mind ?

You never know, we may be talking about the same entity ?

If you look at biological life, wherever complexity exceeds a certain amount, new forms of order emerge. Actually this is also true of the quantum mechanical substructure of the universe - this universe and all matter is merely an emergent strand of new order from increasing complexity. Thus it is inevitable that with time, new and ever more complex species of life/order/creation of more complexity will emerge.

I like this bit also.

--
Adam

[1] Russell's autobiography in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell and Moore's in The Philosophy of G.E. Moore.

[2] http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg01931.html

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