From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Wed Dec 01 1999 - 13:31:02 MST
Unless a "definition" is a postulate of a conceptual system,
it must be rigorously derived (i.e. follow of strict logical
necessity) from one or more axioms of a coherent axiomatic
system such as a "philosophy" in order to be "canonical". I
am aware no such system. Therefore:
"….any doctrine which refuses to place human experience
outside nature, must find in descriptions of human experience
factors which also enter into the descriptions of less specialized
natural occurrences. If there can be no such factors, then the
doctrine of human experience as a fact within nature is mere
bluff, founded upon vague phrases whose sole merit is a com-
forting familiarity. We should either admit dualism, at least as
a provisional doctrine, or we should point out the identical
elements connecting human experience with physical science."
- Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas 1933
Otherwise, we will continue to observe a dreary procession of
"argumentum ad populum's" and "argumentum ad verecundiam's".
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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