At 04:15 PM 1/22/02 -0500, you wrote:
medieval-religion: Scholarly
discussions of medieval religion and culture
This seems to me an extremely sharp point. Anyone who claims
someone's
motivation is other what is claimed has got quite a large job of
explaining
to do. (We are usually happy to do it, encased as we are in a set of
values
and techniques intended to do just that, but it's a pretty iffy
enterprise,
epistemologically speaking).
jw
it may indeed be difficult. but anyone who thinks that most of the
avowed motivations that people write justifying their behavior are worth
taking at their face value, are either terminally naive, or share the
agenda of the person whose protestations they accept. i would say
that we all have lots of explaining to do -- those of us who suspect, and
those who take the motivation as presented by the person in
question. in any case the "easy" answer in the case is
most often dangerously simplistic.
richard
