Re: Modern Physical theory as a basis for Ethical and Existential Nihilism

From: Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:27:40 +0100

At 14:54 29/01/04 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>(a) Dulce et decorum est/ Pro patria mori (Wilfred Owen)
>(b) He died in the trenches during WW I from chlorine gas poisoning
>The former conveys feelings, values, wishes, while the latter conveys
>facts. The former is not true or false in the same way as the latter
>statement is. This has always seemed obvious to me and it has been stated
>in one form or another by philosophers of an empiricist bent since David
>Hume. Does anyone subscribing to this list really disagree that (a) and
>(b) are different at some fundamental level?


I agree. I could even say that it is such nuance that I like to capture in
some formal way
to make it clearer. Actually, without pretending it is exactly that, that
fundamental difference
you single out here, is akin to the difference between first person and
third person. But I quasi take
as an (uncommunicable as it may be) fact that there is such a deep difference.
Some will say "come on, the subjective apprehension cannot be formalised".
True, but there
are tools to formalize, after some shift of level" things which are not
formalizable, at the previous level. But my point here is that I agree the
difference between a and b is fundamental.
Like I agree with your post where you say that science (per se) has nothing
to say about ethic, which is different from saying that we cannot have a
scientific attitude when discussing about ethic principle. I agree with you
but that comforts my point: perhaps you would agree, for a time, even to
take such a difference as an axiom?

What I really like in comp, is that grand-mother is just uneliminable; I
mean grand-mother psychology, also called folk psychology (but then somehow
if you look at the details you will see that grand-mother physics have to
be eliminated...)

Bruno
Received on Thu Jan 29 2004 - 13:43:05 PST