RE: BHA: Bearded men

[Colin Wight <Colin.Wight@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Wallace,

But you are making my point for me surely? You say they have mistaken
beliefs. What marks the distinction between a mistaken belief and one that
is not mistaken? I didn't say that those people who have certain beliefs
about certain individuals couldn't refer to the referent of the beliefs, I
simply said that we had to leave open the possibility that they were
mistaken in their belief. That is Jesus (the bloke the Romans killed), may
not have been Jesus (the son of God). A position you must affirm. I'm
insisting on conceptual clarity again.


 In the case of names,
>so long as we follow a causal chain of Jesus back to a SPECIFIC historical
>figure that people, on various occasions, dubbed Jesus, then we must say
>that contemporary references to Jesus succeed.

Yes, Yes, I conceded this in my post. The term Jesus can properly be said
to refer to this person, but was he Jesus (defined as the son of God). And
is the bloke who sits in my local department store really Santa, or just
the bloke next door referred to as Santa.

>
>The Christians who are willing to follow the causal chain back to a specific
>historical personage are setting themselves up for a fall, so to speak,
>because then we have a human being rather than a spectre to argue about.

Well potentially, yes that was my point. The fall, what makes it possible?
But I am not willing to let my atheism prejudge the issue. If I take
epistemological fallibilism seriously, that geezer murdered by the Romans
we call Jesus, could really have been Jesus. But equally, even though he is
refered to as Jesus, he may not be. But you need the distinction in order
to even think about making this this call.

>
>I might believe that Colin is Santa, or JC, or God itself, and I might also

>believe that he is currently working at a Pizza Hut in London, Ontario, but
>this doesn't prevent me from referring to Colin using the name "Colin," does
>it Colin?

Well, Wallace, if you believe I am any one of these people I'd be more than
happy with the accolade - well maybe not Santa. And you are right, you
could believe I am Jesus but refer to me as Colin. But why would you want
to? What would you gain? There is nothing to stop you asking for a piece of
dog-shit (excuse my language folks) when next you enter MacDonalds, lets
just hope that, and notwithstanding that often the difference may be
slight, they don't give you what you ask for, rather than a Big-mac . It
seems to me that a person who went round referring to things with names
other than what he believed them to be, or how the rest of society referred
to them, would be in for a long spell with Jack Nicholson in the cuckoos
nest.  I mean look, we can use any signifier to refer to anything, but once
signifiers are designated and we misuse them, then reference fails. When we
say Jesus really did die on the cross we need to be clear about what we
mean. Do we mean that a person, who we call Jesus was killed on the cross?
Or, do we mean that Jesus the son of God died on the Cross?

The postmoderns have many a good point, language is very slippery and
meaning inherently unstable and we would do well to at least attempt to be
clear about what we mean.



That's why, since I really am Colin, Wallace, to call me Jesus is to
misname me.

Cheers,


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