Monday, March 5, 2007

Hume wrote noir poetry

Talo: Look what I found. One day Hume wrote, 'If it be conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them; and after what manner? If it be percieved by the eyes, it must be a color; if by the ears, a sound; if the by the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses. But I believe none will assert, that substance is either a color, or sound, or taste. The idea of a susbtance must therefore be derived from an impression or reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflection resolve themselves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possible represent a sustance. We have therefore no idea of substance distinct from that of a collection of particular qualities, nor have we any other meaning when we either talk or reason concerning it.'

Mu: I see. What did he mean?

Talo: Do you see it? He meant that when we ask about the relations between the mind and the soul, we are actually asking about the relation between a nothing and another nothing. In other words, phylobabbles.

Mu: Are you saying that when the perceptions and reason are removed therere nothing left?

Talo: Indeed. No perception and no abstract thinking concerning quantity or number implies that we have nothing. We have nada.

Mu: What else did he say?

Talo: Something very funny. He said, ' When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [that is, Hume's empirical principles], what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school methaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter or fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.'

Mu: Tough. He just dummped all the religions of the world. And people die for them. What a shame!

Talo: What shall we do?

Mu: Oh well...I think that we need to figure out what makes valid a question. Clearly, not all question are valid. Some are just asking nothing about nothing -a way of being waste in philoland.

Talo: Asking questions? How?

Mu: That is what we are trying to figure. How do we know that the question makes sense? What is that sense we want to have before reaching for an anwer? I feel tha Wittgenstein was wrong, that when we ask for the sense of a question we are asking for something beyond a usage or game meaning? I feel that there is a thing that our finger want to reach. I think a lot about the value of common sense.

Talo: Maybe there is a thing in common sense of value. At least sometimes.

Mu: Sure, though common sense can make the world go flat and the moon into a Goddes.

Talo: Not really. Only when you are a fool.

Mu: Sorry, my friend. We are already fools and reaching for the stars.

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