From: Jonas Schiott (jonas.schiott@vinga.hum.gu.se)
Date: Fri 01 Jul 1994 - 20:51:54 EEST
I felt I had to reply to this one, even though I'm unsubscribing for a
while, so you can't argue with me about it on the daily. Unless you're
sneaky enough to talk about me behind my back of course:-).
Martin in X-RQ-ID: 4904 says some mildly abusive things like:
>Despite the apparent irrelevancy and general obscurity
Which is a somewhat surprising response, considering that I'm not trying to accuse anyone of being _wrong_. In fact, if I'm arguing for or against anything, I'm arguing against name-calling and kibitzing.
Anyway, he then gets more substantial:
>Isn't it clear to you that there are differences, even
>within your own experience, in what "believe" means?
OK, this _is_ a valid point. I was using "belief" in a somewhat inprecise way, or perhaps just an _undefined_ way. If I said "mental activity ascribing some not immediately apparent (whatever that means) property to a perceived entity or event", would it make things any clearer? Not that I believe :-) this definition to cover the whole phenomena of belief, it's just an example. Your examples, on the other hand, are all in the form of (self-)conscious statements made by various people about their beliefs, which can hardly be taken at face value.
>Haven't you
>met someone different enough from yourself (from a non-Western
>country, radical, or insane) who obviously thought differently
>from you, and started from a different base of experiences?
<sigh> The old "make your opponent look like a blinkered theorist with no life experiences" ploy? Really, Martin...
>The
>modernist looks at the non-Westerner, the radical, and the crazy
>person and say, "They're wrong, and I'm right."
Well, yes, but what he _says_ is just a _clue_. And besides, he's just one person - unless you're indulging in extremely broad generalizations.
>The pre-
>modernist doesn't even realize that there are different world-
>views.
But the thrust of this argument (the "thought processes of historical agents are in some way comprehensible to us today" argument, which I'm defending without really knowing why...) is not what people _actually_ realize, but what they can _potentially_ realize.
Anyway, to hopefully put an end to this thread: I have no intention of trying to stop historians (or people who think they're historians...) from going at each other's throats over this issue, since that would clearly be a suicidal effort. My only reason for getting involved was to protect the innocent bystanders: the people on this list who haven't had their noses hardened yet and are liable to be convinced by any strongly argued theory that comes along. But now they'll have to fend for themselves a while...
See you all again in August.
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