another pass through first section

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 6 deletions

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--- a/essays/philosophical_reflections.tex
+++ b/essays/philosophical_reflections.tex
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 \fancyhead{} \fancyfoot{} \fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage}
 \fancyhead[LE]{\textsc{Philosophy}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Philosophical Reflections I}}
 
-\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\Alph*.}, wide, nosep, itemsep=1em]
+\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\Alph*.}, wide, nosep, itemindent=0em, itemsep=2em]
 \item 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. 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Is my identification of an object in different spatial orientations (relative to
 
 Is my identification of tactile and visual \enquote{pencil-perceptions} as aspects of a single object (identity of the object as it is experienced through different senses) a belief? Yes. 
 
-It is possible to subjectively classify bodily movements according to whe\-ther they are intentional, because drunken awkwardness, adolescent awkwardness, and movements under ESB are clearly unintentional. Then does intentional movement of my hand require a belief that I can move my hand? Definitely not, although in rare cases some belief will accompany or precede the movement of my hand. But believing itself will not get the hand moved! 
+\slop{It is possible to subjectively classify bodily movements according to whe\-ther they are intentional, because drunken awkwardness, adolescent awkwardness, and movements under ESB are clearly unintentional. Then does intentional movement of my hand require a belief that I can move my hand? Definitely not, although in rare cases some belief will accompany or precede the movement of my hand. But believing itself will not get the hand moved!}
 
 Is there any belief involved in identifying my leg, but not the leg of the table at which I am sitting, as part of my body? Maybe---another ambiguous case.
 
@@ -36,13 +36,15 @@ How can I introspectively analyze my dread as dread of future injury if my belie
 
 \item At one point Alten\editornote{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 \enquote{immediate experience} is mediated; it is a derived phenomenon which only subsists in an objective reality that is outside our subjective standpoint. 
 
-\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\arabic*.}, leftmargin=2em]
+\vskip 0.5em 
 
+\begin{enumerate}[label=\textbf{\arabic*.}, itemsep=0.5em, leftmargin=2em]
 \item But Alten does not seriously defend the claim that he does not distinguish between immediate and non-immediate. The claim that there is no distinction would be regarded as demented in every human culture. Every culture supposes that I may be tricked or cheated: there is a realm, the non-immediate or non-experienced, which provides an arena for surreptitious hostility to me. Every culture supposes that it is easier for me to tell what I am thinking than what you are thinking. Every culture supposes that I will hear things which I should not accept before I go and see for myself. Alten is simply not iconoclastic enough to reject these commonplaces. What he apparently does is, like the perceptual psychologist, to accept the distinction between immediate and non-immediate, and to accept the former as the only way of confirming a model, but to construct a model of the relation between the two in which the former is analyzed as a derivative phenomenon. 
 
-\item 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 isthe archetype of the overt self-deception in beliefs which my philosophy exposes. \enquote{\emph{I can tell the Empire State Building exists now even though I cannot now perceive it.}} \end{enumerate}
+\item 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. \enquote{\emph{I can tell the Empire State Building exists now even though I cannot now perceive it.}} 
+\end{enumerate}
 
-\item In my technical philosophical writings, I call attention to certain self-vitiating \enquote{nodes} il 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. 
+\item In my technical philosophical writings, I call attention to certain self-vitiating \enquote{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. 
 
@@ -54,4 +56,4 @@ At first this suggestion may seem like another joke, a triviality. But my genius
 
 Contrary to what the question of how it is that we are now talking suggests, we do not \enquote{see} language. (That is, we do not experience an objective relation between words and things.) The language we \enquote{see} is a shell whose \enquote{transcendental reference} is provided by self-deception. 
 
-\item Does the theory of amcons\editornote{"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 \enquote{\emph{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. \end{enumerate}
+\item Does the theory of amcons\editornote{\enquote{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 \enquote{\emph{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. \end{enumerate}