From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Wed Nov 24 1999 - 18:44:00 MST
Alexander Bard wrote Tue, 23 Nov 1999 22:51:45 +0200 (his quotations
refer to comments by Mark Pesce):
> >I think perhaps it would be appropriate to call for an archaic return to the
> >poetic. Which overloads itself beyond reason, beyond violence.
> >And, as a plus, it's downright anti-Platonic.
>
> Yes. As such the return of the poetic could be viewed as a protest movement
> directed against the last 300 years of mathematicization of language.
My post of the passage from Tennyson was meant as an illustration; I
made no comment because I wanted to think more about this. What
interests me specially is the historical process by means of which ideas
become conscious of themselves within human cognition, ideas such as
"transhuman" and "extropian". No, Alexander, this is not "Platonism" nor
"Hegelianism" -- it is a METAPHOR. This is where I believe the work of
Stephen Pepper becomes relevant. Webster says a "metaphor"
is
"a figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of
object or action is used in place of another to suggest a likeness
or analogy between them."
Of course, "metaphor" is the language of poetics as well as "precognitive"
fictional literature, e.g. [much] science fiction. But Pepper investigated
the role of metaphor in "philosophy":
"Metaphor in philosophy may be distinguished from metaphor in poetry by
being primarily an explanatory rather than aesthetic device. Its explanatory
function is to aid in conceptual clarification, comprehension, or insight
regarding a mode of philosophical thought, a problem area of philosophical
subject matter, or even a total philosophical system." [1]
While Pepper was primarily interested in the "root metaphor" that underlies
any system of thought (including, of course, science) his insights may be
helpful for the progressive objectivisation of the NATURE of our disciplines
and not the more or less anecdotal descriptions of transhumanist and
extropian "phenomena" that characterize us presently.
"By a root metaphor, I mean an area of empirical observation which is the
point of origin for a world hypothesis. When anyone has a problem before
[her or] him and is at a loss how to handle it, [s]he looks about in [her or]
his available experience for some analogy that might suggest a solution.
This suggestive analogy gives rise to an hypothesis which [s]he can apply
towards the solution. The method of development of world hypotheses for
the problem of gaining comprehension of our world follows, I find, involves
the same procedure. The originating analogy, I have called the root meta-
phor of a world hypothesis. An analysis of the root metaphor generates the
categories of the hypothesis. The adequacy of the hypothesis then depends
on the capacity of the categories to render interpretations of the features
of our world with precision and unrestricted scope." [2]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Quoted from "Metaphor in Philosophy" in Philip S. Wiener (ed.),
Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 1973.
[2] Concept and Quality: A World Hypothesis (LaSalle, IL: Open Court,
1967), p.3.
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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