'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Thursday, January 08, 2015

Philosophical Grammar 116


116. “I see what you see.” I say that because I don’t want to give a name to what I see. – I want to exclude from my consideration of familiarity everything that is
‘historical’. – The multiplicity of familiarity is that of feeling at home in what I see.



‘I don’t want to give a name to what I see?’

this is a logical posture – the point of which is to avoid any propositional commitment

however if you understand that any name – any description –  is a proposal –

open to question – open to doubt – uncertain –

then you understand that any ‘commitment’ – is – can only be – uncertain

‘I want to exclude from my consideration of familiarity everything that is
‘historical’?

a proposition doesn’t come out of nowhere –

our use of propositions is a use of propositional history or histories –

if I use a word it is most likely that I have used it before

or that my use of other words has led to this usage

it is just a history of propositional use that I am familiar with – whenever I give a name to whatever I see

however any explication of that history – any description of it –

like any proposal – any proposition – is open to question – open to doubt – will be uncertain

‘The multiplicity of familiarity is that of feeling at home in what I see’?

yeah – we actually live in uncertainty – in possibility –

in the great propositional clutter

home sweet home