From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny Sun Dec  1 13:06:49 EST 1991
Article 1771 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.arts.books:10883 sci.philosophy.tech:1233 comp.ai.philosophy:1771
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!hsdndev!husc-news.harvard.edu!zariski!zeleny
>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.tech,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Heidegger
Summary: obscurantist, but not obscure
Message-ID: <1991Nov30.111458.6007@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 30 Nov 91 16:14:56 GMT
References: <5710@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1991Nov29.082020.22315@trl.oz.au> <JMC.91Nov29102229@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
Lines: 127
Nntp-Posting-Host: zariski.harvard.edu

In article <JMC.91Nov29102229@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> 
jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:

>In article <1991Nov29.082020.22315@trl.oz.au> 
>louis@medici.trl.OZ.AU (Louis Denger) writes:

>>In article <5710@skye.ed.ac.uk> 
>>jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:

>>>In article <1991Nov25.065412.19783@trl.oz.au> 
>>>louis@medici.trl.OZ.AU (Louis Denger) writes:

LD:
>>>>Et c'est bien evident que du point de vue empirique Anglo-Saxon,
>>>>Martin est impenetrable.

JD:
>>>It certainly seems to be the case that "continental" philosophy
>>>is harder to read than Anglo-Saxon "analytic" philosophy, at least
>>>as the two appear in English.  Are we suffering, perhaps, from bad
>>>translations?  Or just from impatience with a less direct style.

LD:
>>It is clear that European continental philosophy is different from
>>Anglo-Saxon one.

In the second half of this century, yes.  Remember the Enlightenment? the
Cambridge Platonists? or the Vienna Circle?

LD:
>>Both contribute in their own way to understanding
>>and knowledge.
>>As to whether this is good or bad is rather irrelevant.

Agreed.

LD:
>>Writing that a philosopher is impenetrable and irrelevant may indicate
>>that persons who pass such subjective judgements
>>are misunderstanding the problem, and are out of tune
>>with reality. This never adds to understanding.

I would be no more inclined to call a philosopher impenetrable on the
grounds of a personal failure to penetrate his text, than to extend a
similar treatment to a beautiful woman.  On the other hand, unattractive 
is a different matter.

JMC:
>It is nice of Louis Denger to advocate tolerance of all kinds of
>philosophical writing - European and America.  He should include
>Chinese, Japanese and Indian while he is at it.  There are two
>things wrong with it, however.

Look out: here comes the dreaded cultural superiority argument!

JMC:
>1. The difference between analytic philosophy and "continental"
>philosophy is worldwide.  There are analytic philosophers in
>continental Europe also.

Correction: there are logicians and semioticians.  

Aside from Paul Ricoeur, a borderline case, whom would you classify 
as a Continental analytic philosopher?

JMC:
>2. Progress in philosophy is actually being made, i.e. some things
>are understood now that weren't understood until recently.  This
>progress is being made entirely with the analytic methodology.
>"Continental" philosophy has no real standard of argument.
>Heidegger is incoherent in any language.

"There is no doctrine put forward which cannot cite in its defence some
explicit statement of one of this group of thinkers [i.e. philosophers from
Descartes to Hume], or of one of the two founders of all Western thought,
Plato and Aristotle." (A.N.Whitehead)

Heidegger with his fondness for Heraclitus the Dark may be a conspicuous
exception to the above; on the other hand, the father of analytical
philosophy is surely none other than Aristotle.  While it is true that
progress in philosophy is actually being made, in the sense that some
things are understood now that weren't understood until recently, it is
also true that the new, improved, mathematical (remember Spinoza) arguments
still have to rely on good old philosophical intuition, appeals to which
are to be found in the writings of analytic philosophers as diverse as
Church, Quine, Putnam, Kripke, and Dummett.  Worse, a renegade like Rorty
can appropriate the analytic methodology in order to argue on behalf of
nihilistic Heideggerian obscurantism (not to be confused with obscurity).

The Great Questions are still with us; most are quite unlikely to be
resolved with any standard of reasoning whatsoever.

JMC:
>3. My opinion is that AI will cause big changes in analytic
>philosophy.  Contemplating how to make programs that acquire
>information and reason with it will straighten out epistemology
>and philosophy of mind.  I expect it will be another 30 years
>before all analytic philosophy graduate students know a reasonable
>amount about AI.  (My course is cross-listed in formalizing
>common sense is cross-listed in philosophy, and my former
>colleague Vladimir Lifschitz has a joint appointment in
>computer science and philosophy).

All of AI presupposes a particular choice of epistemology and philosophy of
mind; consequently, it is as likely to "straighten out" these disciplines,
as Baron Munchausen -- to pull himself up by his hair.

>--
>John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>*
>He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.


'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
: Qu'est-ce qui est bien?  Qu'est-ce qui est laid?         Harvard   :
: Qu'est-ce qui est grand, fort, faible...                 doesn't   :
: Connais pas! Connais pas!                                 think    :
:                                                             so     :
: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
: 872 Massachusetts Ave., Apt. 707                                   :
: Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139                                     :
: (617) 661-8151                                                     :
: email zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu or zeleny@HUMA1.BITNET            :
:                                                                    :
'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'


