[MD] Hot stoves and those who sit on them

[Ham Priday]

Marsha, Bodvar, and All --


> On Mar 31, 2010, at 4:53 AM, skutvik at online.no wrote:
>
>> In a sense I agree. Philosophy is identical to intellect both as a
>> term and as the Q-level, it's a search for objective truth in
>> contrast to subjective nonsense.  However it's nothing wrong
>> with the term "intellect", it really means the objective attitude.

[Marsha responds]:
> Yes, I like this way of interpreting "intellect" as the 'objective 
> attitude.'
>  It works very well to distinguish it from "thinking."

Maybe I'm nit-picking, but as one who considers "levels" an intellectual 
construct, I think this interpretation is not only wrong but 
epistemologically misleading.

An "attitude" is an emotional state or stance taken toward what is usually a 
social position.  For example, one can have a negative attitude toward the 
liberal ideology, hip-hop music, or capital punishment.  One may be 
predjudiced or biased, of course, which is an 'attitudinal' posture.  But it 
would be an anomaly if someone had a specific "attitude" toward the Theory 
of Relativity, Evolution, cause-and-effect, or the square root of 2.  These 
are intellectual precepts that we either know or are ignorant of, but they 
don't normally evoke the emotions, nor does the intellect itself.

What is an "objective attirude"?  I don't see Objectivism as an "attitude" 
any more than Idealism or 'Qualityism' is an attitude.  Again, these are 
beliefs, practices, or perspectives of reality that do not lend themselves 
to emotional responses.  The thinking process (intellection) is a 
non-emotional function that serves to make sense out of disparate sensory 
data.  It's how we orient ourselves to a relational, space/time world.

Personal tastes and moral preferences, on the other hand, are valuistic 
impressions that do affect our psycho-emotional nature.  And we need to 
recognize the difference.  While we tend to integrate both intellectual 
knowledge and emotional awareness in our concept of self-identity, in 
philosophical dialogue, where semantic clarity is critical to understanding, 
we would be ill-advised to hold to someone's off-the-cuff definition simply 
because we like the sound of it.  It can create unnecessary confusion later 
in the dialectical discourse.

Essentially speaking,
Ham