on contexts?

[" George Snedeker" <snedeker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I fear that this debate on "public" and "private" spirituality is turning
into a victory for postmodernism. yoshi is correct in her analysis of
Descartes' arguments about "private experience." however, I'm not sure this
has much to do with Danielle's statement if we view her statement in its
context. she was not defending a philosophical concept of "private
experience," but using the word "private" in a more ordinary sense. there is
no such thing as a private experience that one can articulate. the very
notion of the "private" is a "public" notion. there is no private language.
I agree. however, statements are not always to be understood the way
analytical philosophers would understand them. here is where the
postmodernists enter the story- language is always ambiguous. statements
must be understood as part of a context. maybe many contexts...we can not
always universalize formulations. as Freud put it in a different context, "
a cigar is sometimes just a cigar." well, it's not really ever just a
cigar...I mean it's a cigar in one context or another.

George