From: David G. McDivitt (dmcdivitt@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2001 - 22:03:45 MDT
Has anyone heard of or tried EPrime speech? From what I read Aristotle
is credited with the metaphor, other forms of "identity" speech, and for
the most part essentialism. EPrime speech was created as an alternative
to "Aristotelian Essentialism" which forms much of the foundation of
Western thought.
I did some reading on the subject and it was very enlightening. As most
have been able to tell I am against essentialism as much as a person
could possibly be, along with ontology and the rest of it. So I tried
doing the EPrime thing. I enjoyed it. Trying to avoid using the words
am, are, be, is, was, were, been, and being is quite a challenge. As was
the claim I sensed a small increase in mental ability, just trying it. I
am not willing however to put my entire life on hold while I retrain to
do without metaphors.
I've gone through a couple of major changes in my life which moved me
away from essentialism and realism. Becoming an atheist was the first
thing, after years of being a religious zealot who prided himself on an
ability to maintain black and white thinking. The second change was my
submission at long last to object oriented computer programming, and
many of the new relational models in use today.
I'm a bit in the middle on things. To present I have not succumbed to
being total mush. I still like a little definition, structure, identity,
or some synonym of that. But I've learned it's OK to make up my own. I
have come to think the problem is not definition as such, but authority,
and the force feeding of definitions and objectifications by society. A
person can have his own, and no approval is necessary.
Frankly, I want no more of Aristotle's little packages, including any
human potential packages.
>From: "Waldemar Ingdahl" <waldemar.ingdahl@eudoxa.se>
>Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 00:47:28 +0200
>
>
>Today I' m going to bring up a fellow from Ancient Greece that should be discussed more: Aristotle.
>
>In the classical, Socratic tradition philosophy is a seeking of the right goals for both the lives of men and of governments.
>Both Plato and Aristotle think that this is the purpose of philosophy. It means that social sciences and political philosophy are closely related to ethics.
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