[PEN-L:30615] Re: Re: Re: Personalities and the List

[ravi <gadfly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>>Michael Perelman wrote:
>> <stuff>
>>

i think mp is very kind, so he is pretty right most of the time. i don't
agree with a lot of doug's posts, but he is like an awesome dude for
doing the wbai radio show and running lbo. ;-)

the philosopher quine i think (jks can correct me, that is if he is
still being nice to me ;-)), or perhaps one of the logical positivists,
 suggested that we should do away with ordinary language and use a new
pseudo-mathematical language that would make meaningless debates
impossible (by not permitting the expression of ambiguities and
self-contradictions, etc) and force some form of responsible analysis.

in recasting debates about issues into debates about personalities, are
we just following biological programming and an instinct to make
problems too complex for our brains, more tractable (albeit
meaningless)? even if we can counter the forces at work to reduce the
discussion to one of personalities, can we devise a form of
debate/analysis that can make progress? i.e., is political science a
science?

just some silly speculation at the cost of the list membership. my
apologies!

	--ravi