Phi/105 Letter
Letter to a 20 or 21 Century Philosopher
PHI/105
September 23, 2012
Letter to a 20 or 21 Century Philosopher I am writing this letter to John Dewey regarding his theory of pragmatism. I am choosing this theory because it interests me in the scientific aspect of your thinking. I know that you chose to challenge logicians to answer the question of truth. This is a hard thing to sort out and make real and true. Going up against some of the times most logical thinkers and challenging them to come up with true answers was one of your strong points.
I know that you were not totally opposed to modern logic as you have stated “logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics.”(Qualitative Thought 1930) This statement to me means that you had maybe exhausted the traditional way of thinking that you had imagined. I believe that you had to reach for more answers and different ways to get those answers. Truth is a hard thing to come by and it is not easily obtained.
I know that you were a philosopher of science and that you used this to try and understand the world. From you research you did not stretch the truth but rather examined all of the parts that could be explained by science. In figuring these things out you were able to determine if the phenomena that you were examining at the time were actually true or not. I find this interesting because there are many things in this world that are hard to explain. I am sure that there were many questions left unanswered for you because the research technology was just not there for you at the time you were doing your research on different phenomena’s. The
PHI/105
September 23, 2012
Letter to a 20 or 21 Century Philosopher I am writing this letter to John Dewey regarding his theory of pragmatism. I am choosing this theory because it interests me in the scientific aspect of your thinking. I know that you chose to challenge logicians to answer the question of truth. This is a hard thing to sort out and make real and true. Going up against some of the times most logical thinkers and challenging them to come up with true answers was one of your strong points.
I know that you were not totally opposed to modern logic as you have stated “logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics.”(Qualitative Thought 1930) This statement to me means that you had maybe exhausted the traditional way of thinking that you had imagined. I believe that you had to reach for more answers and different ways to get those answers. Truth is a hard thing to come by and it is not easily obtained.
I know that you were a philosopher of science and that you used this to try and understand the world. From you research you did not stretch the truth but rather examined all of the parts that could be explained by science. In figuring these things out you were able to determine if the phenomena that you were examining at the time were actually true or not. I find this interesting because there are many things in this world that are hard to explain. I am sure that there were many questions left unanswered for you because the research technology was just not there for you at the time you were doing your research on different phenomena’s. The
References: READING: Ch. 9 of Philosophy: The Power Of Ideas. READING: Ch. 8 of Philosophy: The Power Of Ideas. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm