BHA: Reality, existence, and the Santa Clause

[Hans Ehrbar <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Colin,

You are the one who wrote:

> Beliefs in Santa are real - which I am sure Louis accepts - but Santa (as
> far as we can tell does not). A classic example of the transitive
> intransitive/distinction I would have thought. I also said beliefs possess
> causal power.

and to my knowledge you did not retract this statement
although I maintain this is completely wrong.  This is what I
mean by "blaming the victims."  For a little child it is of
course a problem to distinguish between the transitive and
intransitive dimension, i.e., it is difficult to distinguish
whether Santa is real or a fiction.  But children in our
society are exposed to this dilemma because our society
systematically feeds them these Santa stories and even shows
them pictures of Santa etc.  The children's beliefs are not
the origin of Santa's causal powers, they are only the
channel through with the real causal forces pass.  And we
adults have a lot of responsibility for the real causal
mechanisms behind the Santa story, not because we generated
them, society generated them through us, but because we have
failed to remove them, here you have the reality of de-onts.


Hans.



     --- from list bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---