styling fixes for some lists

3 files changed, 13 insertions, 12 deletions

diff --git a/essays/flyntian_modality.otx b/essays/flyntian_modality.otx
index c1dc7b4..78180be 100644
--- a/essays/flyntian_modality.otx
+++ b/essays/flyntian_modality.otx
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
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+{ \blankstyle
 
 \chap Instructions for the Flyntian Modality
 
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 * Stop all \dq{gross believing,} such as belief in other minds, causality, and the phantom entities of science (atoms, electrons, etc).
 
@@ -24,5 +25,4 @@
 
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diff --git a/essays/philosophical_reflections.otx b/essays/philosophical_reflections.otx
index 6e11d8e..a57de72 100644
--- a/essays/philosophical_reflections.otx
+++ b/essays/philosophical_reflections.otx
@@ -1,10 +1,11 @@
 \chap Philosophical Reflections I
-\def\indicate#1{\vskip 1em\noindent\llap{#1.}}
 
 % \fancyhead{} \fancyfoot{} \fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage}
 % \fancyhead[LE]{\textsc{Philosophy}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Philosophical Reflections I}}
 
-\indicate{A} If language is nonsense, why do we seem to have it? How do these intricate pseudo-significant structures arise? If beliefs are self-deceiving, why are they there? Why are we so skilled in the self-deceptive reflex that I find in language and belief? Why are we so fluent in thinking in self-vitiating concepts? Granting that language and belief are mistakes, are mistakes of this degree of complexity made for nothing? Is not the very ability to concoct an apparently significant, self-vitiating and self-deceiving structure a transcendent ability, one that points to something non-immediate? Do not these conceptual gymnastics, even if self-vitiating, make us superior to the mindless animals? 
+\begitems\style Z\unstep\itemskipamount=1em
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+* If language is nonsense, why do we seem to have it? How do these intricate pseudo-significant structures arise? If beliefs are self-deceiving, why are they there? Why are we so skilled in the self-deceptive reflex that I find in language and belief? Why are we so fluent in thinking in self-vitiating concepts? Granting that language and belief are mistakes, are mistakes of this degree of complexity made for nothing? Is not the very ability to concoct an apparently significant, self-vitiating and self-deceiving structure a transcendent ability, one that points to something non-immediate? Do not these conceptual gymnastics, even if self-vitiating, make us superior to the mindless animals? 
 
 Such questions tempt one to engage in a sort of philosophical anthropology, using in part the method of introspection. Beliefs could be explained as arising in an attempt to deal with experienced frustrations by denying them in thought. The origin of Christian Science and magic would thereby be explained. Further, we could postulate a primal anxiety-reaction to raw experience. This anxiety would be lessened by mythologies and explanatory beliefs. The frustration and the anxiety-reaction would be primal non-cognitive needs for beliefs. 
 
@@ -16,7 +17,7 @@ In short, the paradoxes which my philosophy uncovers must remain unexplained and
 
 The other objection to my philosophical anthropology is that its implications are unnecessarily conservative. An explanation of why people do something wrong can become an assertion that it is necessary to do wrong and finally a justification for doing wrong. But just because I tend, for example, to construe my perceptions as confirmations of propositions about phenomena beyond my experience does not mean that I must think in this way. To explain the modern cognitive orientation by philosophical anthropology tends to absolutize it and to conceal its dispensability. 
 
-\indicate{B} There are more legitimate tasks for the introspective \dq{anthropology} of beliefs than trying to find primal non-cognitive needs for beliefs. Presupposing the analysis of beliefs as mental acts and self-deception which I have made elsewhere, we need to examine closely the boundary line between beliefs and non-credulous mental activity. 
+* There are more legitimate tasks for the introspective \dq{anthropology} of beliefs than trying to find primal non-cognitive needs for beliefs. Presupposing the analysis of beliefs as mental acts and self-deception which I have made elsewhere, we need to examine closely the boundary line between beliefs and non-credulous mental activity. 
 
 Is my fear of jumping out of the window a belief? Strictly speaking, no. In psychological terms, a conditioned reflex does not require propositional thought. 
 
@@ -34,7 +35,7 @@ How can I introspectively analyze my dread as dread of future injury if my belie
 
 \gap
 
-\indicate{C} At one point Alten\ednote{A classmate of Flynt's at Harvard.} claimed that his dialectical approach does not take any evidence as being more immediate, more primary, than any other evidence. Our \dq{immediate experience} is mediated; it is a derived phenomenon which only subsists in an objective reality that is outside our subjective standpoint. 
+* At one point Alten\ednote{A classmate of Flynt's at Harvard.} claimed that his dialectical approach does not take any evidence as being more immediate, more primary, than any other evidence. Our \dq{immediate experience} is mediated; it is a derived phenomenon which only subsists in an objective reality that is outside our subjective standpoint. 
 
 \vskip 0.5em 
 
@@ -44,7 +45,7 @@ How can I introspectively analyze my dread as dread of future injury if my belie
 * Alten proposes to analyze his own awareness as a derivative phe\-no\-me\-non, to take a stance outside all human awareness. But this is the pretense of the God-like perspective. He postulates both his own limitedness and his ability to step outside it! This is an overt contradiction. Indeed, it is the archetype of the overt self-deception in beliefs which my philosophy exposes. \dq{\e{I can tell the Empire State Building exists now even though I cannot now perceive it.}} 
 \enditems
 
-\indicate{D} In my technical philosophical writings, I call attention to certain self-vitiating \dq{nodes} in the logic of common sense. These nodes include the concept of non-experience and the assertion that there is language. I often find that others dismiss these examples as jokes that can be isolated from cognition or the logic of common sense, rather than acknowledging that they are self-vitiating nodes in the logic of common sense. As a result, I have concluded that it is probably futile to debate the abstract validity of my analysis of these nodes. It does indeed appear as if I am debating over an abstract joke, and it is not apparent why I would attribute such great importance to a joke. 
+* In my technical philosophical writings, I call attention to certain self-vitiating \dq{nodes} in the logic of common sense. These nodes include the concept of non-experience and the assertion that there is language. I often find that others dismiss these examples as jokes that can be isolated from cognition or the logic of common sense, rather than acknowledging that they are self-vitiating nodes in the logic of common sense. As a result, I have concluded that it is probably futile to debate the abstract validity of my analysis of these nodes. It does indeed appear as if I am debating over an abstract joke, and it is not apparent why I would attribute such great importance to a joke. 
 
 \essaytitle{Philosophical Aspects of Walking Through Walls} represents my present approach. The advantage of this approach is that it makes unmistakable the reason why I attribute so much importance to these philosophical studies. I am not merely debating the abstract validity of a few isolated linguistic jokes; I seek to overthrow the life-world. The only significance of my technical philosophical writings is to offer an explanation of why the life-world is subject to being undermined. 
 
@@ -52,8 +53,8 @@ When I speak of walking through walls, the mistake is often made of trying to un
 
 At first this suggestion may seem like another joke, a triviality. But my genius consists in recognizing that it is not, that there is a residue of non-vacuity and non-triviality in this proposal. There may be only a hair's-breadth of difference between the state I propose and mental incompetence or death---but still, there is all of a hair's-breadth. I magnify this hair's-breadth many times, and use it as a lever to overturn civilization. 
 
-\indicate{E} I am often asked in philosophical discussion how it is that we are now talking if language is vitiated. Let me comment that merely pointing over and over to one of the two circumstances which create a paradox does not resolve the paradox. Indeed, a paradox arises when there are two circumstances in conflict. The \dq{fact} that we are talking is one of the two circumstances which conjoin in the paradox of language; the other circumstance being the self-vitiating \dq{nodes} I have mentioned. To repeat over and over that we are now talking does not resolve any paradoxes. 
+* I am often asked in philosophical discussion how it is that we are now talking if language is vitiated. Let me comment that merely pointing over and over to one of the two circumstances which create a paradox does not resolve the paradox. Indeed, a paradox arises when there are two circumstances in conflict. The \dq{fact} that we are talking is one of the two circumstances which conjoin in the paradox of language; the other circumstance being the self-vitiating \dq{nodes} I have mentioned. To repeat over and over that we are now talking does not resolve any paradoxes. 
 
 Contrary to what the question of how it is that we are now talking suggests, we do not \dq{see} language. (That is, we do not experience an objective relation between words and things.) The language we \dq{see} is a shell whose \dq{transcendental reference} is provided by self-deception. 
 
-\indicate{F} Does the theory of amcons\ednote{\dq{Admissable contradictions}, defined in \essaytitle{The Logic of Admissable Contradictions} in this volume.} show that the contradiction exposed in \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs} is admissible and thus loses its philosophical force? No. An amcon is between two things that you see, e.g. stationary motion. It is between two sensed qualities, the simultaneous experiencing of contradictory qualities. (But \dq{\e{He left an hour ago}} begins to be a borderline case. Here the point is the ease with which we swallow an expression which violates logical rules. Also expansion of an arc: a case even more difficult to classify.) The contradiction in \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs} has to do first with the logic of common sense, with the logical rules of language. It has to do, secondly, with the circumstance that you don't see something, yet act as if you do. Amcons should not be used to justify self-deception in the latter sense, to rescue every cheap superstition. 
+* Does the theory of amcons\ednote{\dq{Admissable contradictions}, defined in \essaytitle{The Logic of Admissable Contradictions} in this volume.} show that the contradiction exposed in \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs} is admissible and thus loses its philosophical force? No. An amcon is between two things that you see, e.g. stationary motion. It is between two sensed qualities, the simultaneous experiencing of contradictory qualities. (But \dq{\e{He left an hour ago}} begins to be a borderline case. Here the point is the ease with which we swallow an expression which violates logical rules. Also expansion of an arc: a case even more difficult to classify.) The contradiction in \essaytitle{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs} has to do first with the logic of common sense, with the logical rules of language. It has to do, secondly, with the circumstance that you don't see something, yet act as if you do. Amcons should not be used to justify self-deception in the latter sense, to rescue every cheap superstition. 
diff --git a/essays/some_objections.otx b/essays/some_objections.otx
index 9a34fd3..6ab72a5 100644
--- a/essays/some_objections.otx
+++ b/essays/some_objections.otx
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
 % \fancyhead{} \fancyfoot{} \fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage}
 % \fancyhead[LE]{{\caps Philosophy}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Some Objections to my Philosophy}}
 
-% TODO make "wide"? we probably want counters
-\begitems\style A
+\begitems\style A\unstep\itemskipamount=1em
+
 * The predominant attitude toward philosophical questions in educated circles today derives from the later Wittgenstein. Consider the philosopher's question of whether other people have minds. The Wittgensteinian attitude is that in ordinary usage, statements which imply that other people have minds are not problematic. Everybody knows that other people have minds. To doubt that other people have minds, as a philosopher might do, is simply to misuse ordinary language.\fnote{See \booktitle{Philosophical Investigations}, \S 420.} Statements which imply that other people have minds works perfectly well in the context for which they were intended. When philosophers find these statements problematic, it is because they subject the statements to criticism by logical standards which are irrelevant and extraneous to ordinary usage.\fnote{\S \S 402, 412, 119, 116.}
 
 For Wittgenstein, the existence of God, immortal souls, other minds, and the Empire State Building (when I am not looking at it) are all things which everybody knows; things which it is impossible to doubt \dq{in a real case.}\fnote{\S 303, Iliv. For Wittgenstein's theism, see Norman Malcolm's memoir.} The proper use of language admits of no alternative to belief in God; atheism is just a mistake in the use of language.