Me, I'm lucky I'm not a philosopher. Amidst the good sense here are
some assumptions that could only be produced by habitual abstraction.
So, for instance, is it really true that "a misogynist is a man who
finds women difficult to understand?" Are all men who find women
difficult to understand, at least in some circumstances, misogynists?
How about women who find men difficult to understand? It's possible
to thrive on difficulty of understanding.
Here, the assumption is a basis for a series of extrapolations, which
compounds the problem.
No time to go into this further.
Mark
At 12:55 PM 6/13/2008, you wrote:
>Thanks Tad for pasting the text. I did read it. I think I am lucky because I
>am not a misogynist. I see misogyny as a further burden for those who have
>to carry it.
>
>On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 4:48 PM, TheOldMole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Goodman says somewhere that he finds abstract entities difficult to
> > understand. And from a psychological viewpoint it is certainly his dislike
> > and distrust of abstract entities which leads him to propose an ontology
> > from
> > which they are omitted. Now a misogynist is a man who finds women
> > difficult
> > to understand, and who in fact considers them objectionable incongruities
> > in
> > an otherwise matter-of-fact and hard-headed world. Suppose then that in
> > analogy with nominalism the misogynist is led by his dislike and distrust
> > of
> > women to omit them from his ontology. Women are not real, he tells
> > himself,
> > and derives great comfort from the thought -- there _are_ no such things.
> > This doctrine let us call _ontological_ _misogyny_.
> >
> > There are various forms which such a doctrine may take. The misogynist may
> > follow the example of Ryle and say that the world of women has no
> > independent
> > existence, it does not exist in addition to man's world but is an aspect of
> > it; and though it may be convenient to speak of women independently, it is
> > also misleading, and actually one should not ask such questions as whether
> > women exist. But if this doctrine stands in isolation and does not affect
> > the circumstances under which he agrees to my assertion that there is a
> > woman
> > in the room, or admits that some women have made important scientific
> > discoveries, then it is clear that the denial of ontological status to
> > women
> > is only a matter of psychological comfort to the misogynist and has no
> > further significance.
> > Instead of this the misogynist may take the more profound course which
> > follows Goodman and Quine, attempting to construct a comprehensive theory
> > that is adequate in general for purposes of understanding and
> > communication,
> > but at the same time avoiding ontological commitment to women. It is an
> > interesting logical question how far such a theory is possible (without
> > inconsistency with experimental and observational results). I think it may
> > have at least as much success as has attended the corresponding search for
> > a
> > nominalistic theory, and probably more.
> >
> > Just as propositions are replaced by inscriptions in order to avoid
> > ontological commitment to the former, so a woman might be replaced by her
> > husband. Instead of saying that a woman is present, we might speak of men
> > as
> > having two kinds of presence, primary presence and secondary presence, the
> > observational criteria for secondary presence of a man being the same which
> > the more usual theory would take as observational criteria for presence of
> > a
> > woman. And similarly in the case of other things that one might think to
> > say
> > about women. Certain difficulties arise over the fact that some women have
> > more than one husband and others none, but these are no greater than the
> > corresponding difficulties in the case of propositions and inscriptions.
> >
> > Actually the task might be lightened by taking advantage of the fortunate
> > circumstance that every woman has only one father. And for this reason
> > ontological misogyny is a doctrine much easier to put into satisfactory
> > logical order than is the Quine-Goodman finitistic nominalism.
> >
> > But the question of the logical possibility of such a theory must be
> > separated from the question of the desirability of replacing the ordinary
> > theory by this ontologically more economical variant of it. Quine and
> > Goodman emphasize the economy of nominalism in supposing the existence of
> > fewer entities. But the economy which has commonly been the concern of
> > the logician, and of the mathematician dealing with foundations, has been
> > simply economy of assumption, which might be thought to include (among
> > other things) economy of ontological assumption, but certainly not as its
> > primary or most important element. Surely there are other criteria by
> > which to judge a theory. And though we may be obliged to grant that the
> > ontological misogynist has made a successful application of Ockham's
> > razor, in that he has reduced his ontology without losing the adequacy of
> > his theory, we may still prefer the more usual theory which grants
> > existence to women.
> >
> > To return to Quine and Goodman, it is possible, even likely, that the
> > failure of their program will demonstrate the untenability of their
> > finitistic nominalism. But the success of their program, like that of
> > ontological misogynist, would leave us to choose between the rival
> > ontologies on other grounds. It is only in the former case that Quine and
> > Goodman could be said in any sense to have settled the nominalist-realist
> > controversy. But it is in any case a major contribution to have clarified
> > the meaning of the dispute, by putting the opposing doctrines on a sounder
> > basis and showing their relevance to logic.
> >
> > ALONZO CHURCH
> >
> >
> >
> > David Bircumshaw wrote:
> >
> >> I was just browsing on a philosophical site and came across the
> >> following piece of sublime lunacy:
> >>
> >> "This is the tag end of a talk that Church delivered at Harvard
> >> entitled "Antinominalism", in which he develops the theory of
> >> "ontological misogyny" in order to prove that women don't exist."
> >>
> >> There was a link provided but the site it points to, um, no longer
> >> exists. Ah, the folly of the wise.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > Tad Richards
> > http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> > http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
> >
> > The moral is this: in American verse,
> > The better you are, the pay is worse.
> > --Corey Ford
> >
>
>
>
>--
>Anny Ballardini
>http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
>http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
>http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
>I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
>star!
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