[MD] brief tangent with Steve

[david buchanan]

Steve, please review the following exchange:


Steve said to dmb:

.... Rather than knowledge being a matter of finding the proper correspondences between sentences and non-language, such linguistic relations go all the way down.



dmb replied:

 ... you've framed the issue as if there were only two choices; either subscribe to the correspondence theory or say that it's language all the way down. This is a false dilemma ...


Steve replied to the reply:
That's not at all how I frame the issue.  ... "Language all the way down" is a denial of the correspondence theory of truth and a theory of language. 


dmb replied to Steve:
Dude, you're driving me crazy. I know the slogan is a denial of correspondence. I realize that it's a criticism of empiricism and a theory of language. I'm simply saying that one can deny correspondence AND the slogan. One can object to the slogan without also endorsing the correspondence theory of truth. One can agree with its criticism of empiricism and still be a radical empiricist. (James said the same things a couple generations before Sellars did.)


Steve replied:
Dude, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, you are a total dick, but that too is entirely beside the point. Why say this sort of stuff?


dmb NOW says:
I think you were being unfair and so I tried to show you why but then your reaction to that was even more unfair. As I see it, instead of calling me a "total dick", you should have said, "Oh, I can see what you mean. I guess it could be taken as a false dilemma. I guess it does look like I framed the issue that way and apparently Matt agreed with you on that point. Sorry for the misunderstanding." Instead of an apology, I get abuse. 

What if the situation were reversed? What if I framed the issue a certain way and then later in the same post I denied that framing. Would you have to be a "total dick" to point that out? I don't think so. I think any apparent contradictions or reversals NEEDS to be addressed in conversation. It's not just fair game, debates can't function without disputing or criticizing such things. Given that fact, your lack of charity and apparent super-hypersensitivity to any kind of criticism is counterproductive, to say the least. 

To say, "dude, you're driving me crazy" was, I thought, a very mild admonishment. I put it that way to be polite and I'd gate to see what your reaction would have been if I'd been perfectly frank. What I really think is that you're misconstruing just about everything I say and it was tempting to insult your reading comprehension skills but instead I simply corrected your characterizations. How many times in that post did I say something like, "that's not at all what I'm saying". You're driving me crazy because nothing I say seems to be getting across to you and it's very frustrating. I don't know how many times you've asked a question that's already been answered so that I have to repeat myself. How many times have I written sentences to you that being with, "Again,..."? I don't know, but the number is way too high. When it's all added up, I get the distinct impression that you're not really listening. It seems to me that you've got a big chip on your shoulder and you're always looking for an excuse to start a fight.

If you're actually interested in discussing the substance of the matter, that's fine. But that's never going to happen if you're constantly pissed off by disputes and disagreements, if you see these mild complaints as total dickitude. It's not the name calling that bothers me here, I swear. What bothers me is the breakdown in communication that it represents. I mean, I'm fairly certain that you still don't get my point about why this is a false dilemma.