Re: BHA: Santa, God, kneeling

[Colin Wight <Colin.Wight@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Hans,

But no one has done this. Nobody has at any time suggested that the
discourses of Santa aren't real. Look, the point is what does it mean to
say 'Santa is real'? If by santa you really mean the discourses of santa
that arise, in part, because of the social realtions we are embedded, then
yes these exist and are real. But is there a white bearded old bloke ect.,
etc...... Is Santa real in this sense?

No, not as far as I can tell. there seems to me to be a lot of conceptual
slippage in this debate and what those arguing for the exostence of Santa
really mean is the discourse of Santa. No one has denied this reality.

Also, actually, it seems to me that I may have been at fault in accepting
the original formulation of this problem, because thinking about it, the
discourses of Santa primarily exist because most people don't believe in
him. After all, if you really believed in Santa, you'd hardly go about
spending fortunes on Xmas presents would you? So santa (defined as a set of
concepts and practices) exists because we all know he (defined as a white
bearded old man who X, X, X...) doesn't really exist - a classic example of
an absence having causal power perhaps!

Also, Michael, I don't doubt that the ontology of the social world is much
more complex than that of the natural, however, social structures are
causally although not existentially intransitive to us surely? Else, the
postmoderns must be right, non? BTW, what do you mean by RB's rationalism
(do you mean its technical sense - surely not), or rationality? and if the
latter what's the problem with rationality?

Thanks,



Thanks,


=============================================


Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Wales
SY23 3DA
Tel: (01970) 621769


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