beyond ayn rand blog

[Selene]

Ilya, are you familiar with Toulman argumentation structures?

Debate?

Persuasion?

Oral interpretation?

Adam

No. I am also not a big fan of Wittgenstein.

The guy who hired myself and two other rhetoric majors, one a C.S. Lewis scholar and the other a passionate Richard Nixon person who spoke and read perfect Greek...

Hell of an asset to have since we three were immersed in Aristotle.

At any rate Russel Windes was both a teacher, mentor, adviser, boss and friend and a Toulman logician.

Here is his Vitae:

http://courses.missouristate.edu/RalphSmith/GEPfall2k/excerpts/gep397_windes_excerpt.htm

Adam

[ilstar]

Ilya, are you familiar with Toulman argumentation structures?

Debate?

Persuasion?

Oral interpretation?

Adam

No. I am also not a big fan of Wittgenstein.

The guy who hired myself and two other rhetoric majors, one a C.S. Lewis scholar and the other a passionate Richard Nixon person who spoke and read perfect Greek...

Hell of an asset to have since we three were immersed in Aristotle.

At any rate Russel Windes was both a teacher, mentor, adviser, boss and friend and a Toulman logician.

Here is his Vitae:

http://courses.missouristate.edu/RalphSmith/GEPfall2k/excerpts/gep397_windes_excerpt.htm

Adam

You had a good professor. I am going to Northern Illinois University (NIU), and it is not a big university for rhetoric. In fact, we don't even have a PhD in Rhetoric, so I am doing one in English with a concentration in Rhetoric. I fell in love with rhetoric when I was studying linguistics there last year and decided to stay, rather than move to a more prestigious university with an actual Rhetoric Department like Berkeley or Carnegie Mellon. I could have gotten excellent recommendation letters there, but I've decided to take an easy route. I am going to return to Russia anyway, and a degree from NIU should work fine for my future goals.

[Selene]

Ilya, are you familiar with Toulman argumentation structures?

Debate?

Persuasion?

Oral interpretation?

Adam

No. I am also not a big fan of Wittgenstein.

The guy who hired myself and two other rhetoric majors, one a C.S. Lewis scholar and the other a passionate Richard Nixon person who spoke and read perfect Greek...

Hell of an asset to have since we three were immersed in Aristotle.

At any rate Russel Windes was both a teacher, mentor, adviser, boss and friend and a Toulman logician.

Here is his Vitae:

http://courses.missouristate.edu/RalphSmith/GEPfall2k/excerpts/gep397_windes_excerpt.htm

Adam

You had a good professor. I am going to Northern Illinois University (NIU), and it is not a big university for rhetoric. In fact, we don't even have a PhD in Rhetoric, so I am doing one in English with a concentration in Rhetoric. I fell in love with rhetoric when I was studying linguistics there last year and decided to stay, rather than move to a more prestigious university with an actual Rhetoric Department like Berkeley or Carnegie Mellon. I could have gotten excellent recommendation letters there, but I've decided to take an easy route. I am going to return to Russia anyway, and a degree from NIU should work fine for my future goals.

That was my next question, where in Russia?

Also, I am a lover of Korzybski and we used to have a poster here who also liked him. Since you studied linguistics, I can pick your brain on the Count and general semantics...Yes?

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It just doesn't make sense. It's like we are running away from a problem we can't solve.

Ilya,

Why, that's right!

It doesn't make sense, but that's not on us. Crazy people do crazy stuff. Why? Because they are crazy.

They are not supposed to make sense. They can't not not make sense even if they wanted to.

I suppose you could call not engaging them running away from a problem, but curing neurotics is for psychotherapists, not philosophers. The fundamental issue on the table is crazy, not philosophy. And you don't get to change that with a crazy person. He or she won't let you. But they will make you crazy along with them. That's all they want and all they do.

Besides, one should charge money for trying to cure neuroses in another.

On a different, far better issue, Lakoff and Johnson's book on metaphor is just now coming up to the top of my reading list. After I get into it, I will be interested in your thoughts.

Michael

[ilstar]

That was my next question, where in Russia?

Also, I am a lover of Korzybski and we used to have a poster here who also liked him. Since you studied linguistics, I can pick your brain on the Count and general semantics...Yes?

Adam

I am from Orel, but I think I want to move to Moscow.

We have a Chomskyan-infested linguistics department, so I know very little of true semantics from my professors. We have a Chomskyan student and the leading linguistics professor at NIU, Professor Gulsat Aygen. When I asked her about semantics in a linguistic typology seminar, she said something along the lines: "Oh that's like going back to what Aristotle said..." So I asked her: "And what did Aristotle say?" To which she never replied for the reason of making a row and hence ending our "argument." And from studying Lakoff, I learn arguments against formal semantics, yet which also disentangle semantics from generative syntax. Nonetheless, I think Lakoff's semantics is a lot closer to genuine Aristotle's essentialist view than Chomsky's semantic-puppeteering syntax.

[ilstar]

It just doesn't make sense. It's like we are running away from a problem we can't solve.

Ilya,

Why, that's right!

It doesn't make sense, but that's not on us. Crazy people do crazy stuff. Why? Because they are crazy.

They are not supposed to make sense. They can't not not make sense even if they wanted to.

I suppose you could call not engaging them running away from a problem, but curing neurotics is for psychotherapists, not philosophers. The fundamental issue on the table is crazy, not philosophy. And you don't get to change that with a crazy person. He or she won't let you. But they will make you crazy along with them. That's all they want and all they do.

Besides, one should charge money for trying to cure neuroses in another.

On a different, far better issue, Lakoff and Johnson's book on metaphor is just now coming up to the top of my reading list. After I get into it, I will be interested in your thoughts.

Michael

Michael, I take issue with people calling people crazy. I really think it is a poor rhetoric because once you call your opponent crazy, the argument may abruptly end and violence may begin. Objectivists, Marxists, and Harris/Andie have called me crazy before. I tolerated their attacks for the sole reason that I know the outcome of not engaging in rhetoric. The outcome is called incommensurability, and it's as anti-Aristotelian as it can get.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, I take issue with people calling people crazy. I really think it is a poor rhetoric because once you call your opponent crazy, the argument may abruptly end and violence may begin.

What violence?

From that fraudulent crazy person?

Gimme a break!

btw - I want any and all argument with that crazy person ended abruptly. After all the crap that crazy person did here, I take issue with discussing that person on OL. Please do it off-line or on your own site.

Anywhere else but here. It's a big Internet so there is no lack of places.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

[...nothing about sharing a cake with others, or lending me a helping hand in this matter...]

could it be lies all the way down?

Well, one thing Bill told me about himself is confirmed on the thread on Marxist forum, in which he basically mentions being against Rand ("the horrid type") and for unorthodox Marxism ("we're all Marxists"). I am reading Bill's posts on the Marxist forum right now, and he writes there that his "own PhD was on how changing conditions of production among the Tuareg (Am'zert) effect their nomenclature of kinship." This is a PhD in anthropology (which does involve studying Marxism) as he told me this on my blog as well.

In contrast, Eva said in the linked thread that her "intellectual extras do include philo, but also lit and, now, anthropology." This is strange because it seems that anthropology is most recent, whereas Bill mentioned his degrees in the opposite order, with anthropology being the first and highest degree and no literature among them. I would presume one would get a PhD first and then additional master's degrees later. So does it mean that Bill is a he and Eva is a she, and they are different individuals?

Of course, there is something that complicates all these matters. When Bill posted on my blog, he once logged in and posted as Andie Holland. He apologized for it, meaning it was an accident that he logged in under Andie's name. What's going on here? Do they have one computer where they live? I highly doubt that. Or why would they all use one computer? Is Bill and Andie the same person? I've talked to Andie before on OO, and they do seem very similar with lots of knowledge on physics, Kantianism, and Marxism.

You can have these people or not. There can be value either way. You can have them a week, a month, a year. Choose. This is not a right nor a wrong. What is the greater value to you? You can pull the cord any time. Choose. There is no one here to choose for you. You can even choose to muddle along. Just be a man about it by knowing what is going on first about what you know.

They have come to you on a platter: eat?

--Brant

(Socrates was a son-of-a-bitch)

[ilstar]

You can have these people or not. There can be value either way. You can have them a week, a month, a year. Choose. This is not a right nor a wrong. What is the greater value to you? You can pull the cord any time. Choose. There is no one here to choose for you. You can even choose to muddle along. Just be a man about it by knowing what is going on first about what you know.

They have come to you on a platter: eat?

--Brant

Socrates was a son-of-a-bitch

I won't close my eyes on it -- that's my decision. I shall remain with my eyes widely open, however "painful" it can get. As it is written in The Fountainhead: "It goes only down to a certain point and then it stops. As long as there is that untouched point, it's not really pain."

[Selene]

I really think it is a poor rhetoric...I know the outcome of not engaging in rhetoric. The outcome is called incommensurability, and it's as anti-Aristotelian as it can get.

Ilya:

Out of curiosity, how are you defining "rhetoric?"

Chomsky, I certainly have my issues with his entire gestalt...

To those unfamiliar with the term incommensurabilty, ...

The term ‘incommensurable’ means ‘no common measure’, having its origins in Ancient Greek mathematics, where it meant no common measure between magnitudes. For example, there is no common measure between the length of the leg and the length of the hypotenuse of an isosceles, right triangle. Such incommensurable relations are represented by irrational numbers. The metaphorical application of this mathematical notion specifically to the relation between successive scientific theories became controversial in 1962 after it was popularised by two influential philosophers of science: Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. They appeared to be challenging the rationality of natural science and were called in Nature, “the worst enemies of science” (Theocharis and Psimopoulos 1987, 596; cf. Preston et al. 2000). Since 1962, the incommensurability of scientific theories has been a widely discussed, controversial idea that was instrumental in the historical turn in the philosophy of science and the establishment of the sociology of science as a professional discipline.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/

Adam

[ilstar]

Ilya:

Out of curiosity, how are you defining "rhetoric?" [...]

Adam

For my own purposes, I've defined rhetoric before as "a meaningful synchronization of a human in relationship with a specific discourse community."

[Wolf DeVoon]

Let's see if I have this straight. If I decline to talk to you ("meaningful synchronization of a human in relationship with a specific discourse community") then I run the risk of incommensurability, i.e. not caring what you think, which I don't.

Jeeves, hand me the Ignore button, old chum. Ta.

[Selene]

Ilya:

Out of curiosity, how are you defining "rhetoric?" [...]

Adam

For my own purposes, I've defined rhetoric before as "a meaningful synchronization of a human in relationship with a specific discourse community."

Easy Wolf, lol.

Ilya:

We are not using Aristotle's definition whose "book" is called Rhetoric?

I have always been fascinated by how "rhetoricians, communication arts and sciences folks and Skinnerian behavioralists run away from the originator's definition.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Ilya:

Out of curiosity, how are you defining "rhetoric?" [...]

Adam

For my own purposes, I've defined rhetoric before as "a meaningful synchronization of a human in relationship with a specific discourse community."

Group sex?

--Brant

a soccer match?

[ilstar]

Easy Wolf, lol.

Ilya:

We are not using Aristotle's definition whose "book" is called Rhetoric?

I have always been fascinated by how "rhetoricians, communication arts and sciences folks and Skinnerian behavioralists run away from the originator's definition.

Adam

I have no problem with Aristotle's definition. In fact it is perfectly fine and ethical. But to connect rhetoric to incommensurability in my previous statement to Michael, this definition works clearer, and Wolf used it as I intended. Indeed, if he doesn't want to talk to me and doesn't care about what I think - it leads the road to incommensurability. To close oneself to other ideas is to separate from or desynchronize with other people and their discourse communities.

Group sex?

--Brant

a soccer match?

Sexual rhetoric, sure, and sports rhetoric. As long as you are not walking away from a meaningful communication or synchronization with other people like Wolf does, you are perfectly fine.

[Selene]

Ilya:

We are not using Aristotle's definition whose "book" is called Rhetoric?

...I have no problem with Aristotle's definition. In fact it is perfectly fine and ethical. But to connect rhetoric to incommensurability in my previous statement to Michael, this definition works clearer,...

Ilya:

Let me be clear then...Rhetoric is developing all the means of persuasion in the given case.

Rhetoric is both "arte" and "techne."

Is that the definition that you had in mind?

Adam

[ilstar]

Ilya:

Let me be clear then...Rhetoric is developing all the means of persuasion in the given case.

Rhetoric is both "arte" and "techne."

Is that the definition that you had in mind?

Adam

I had in mind "discerning the available means of persuasion," apparent and real, yeah.

[Selene]

Ilya:

Let me be clear then...Rhetoric is developing all the means of persuasion in the given case.

Rhetoric is both "arte" and "techne."

Is that the definition that you had in mind?

Adam

I had in mind "discerning the available means of persuasion," apparent and real, yeah.

Oops, I did forget to put in "available," good catch, you know how us seasoned citizens are...

[tmj]

Ilya

I seem to remember you posting a link to (in OO) to a blog post that you claimed was biographical and if I'm not mistaken the piece described your time in the Russian military service? Am I mistaken? The link (if it is the one I remember) says 'removed by author'. You did say you came to the USA at age 15, yes? Was it a fiction piece, or just my poor recollection? And if you could tell us more of Eva/Bill/Andie/Frank's positive attributes and scholarship, and why those here should engage them on your blog..

[ilstar]

Ilya

I seem to remember you posting a link to (in OO) to a blog post that you claimed was biographical and if I'm not mistaken the piece described your time in the Russian military service? Am I mistaken? The link (if it is the one I remember) says 'removed by author'. You did say you came to the USA at age 15, yes? Was it a fiction piece, or just my poor recollection? And if you could tell us more of Eva/Bill/Andie/Frank's positive attributes and scholarship, and why those here should engage them on your blog..

You recollect correctly, tmj, except it wasn't a blog post but a non-fiction essay I wrote for a graduate class. Yes, I served in the Russian army, but that was in 2009-10, many years after I had already experienced life in the USA.

Although Michael explicitly stated I should not mention their names or argue about them, I am going to keep this comment short: those-who-shall-not-be-named are more qualified and knowledgeable in philosophy and science than I am.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Although Michael explicitly stated I should not mention their names or argue about them, I am going to keep this comment short: those-who-shall-not-be-named are more qualified and knowledgeable in philosophy and science than I am.

Ilya,

Just to be clear, when you talk about a crazy person online, he tends to show up. That particular person name-drops like a social climber, but has very little true knowledge of the ideas behind the names. It's all fakery to scratch an empty vanity that itches. Philosophy by floating memes.

(Example, "the heuristic of Kahneman." Said over and over like a catch-all natural law. Except I read Kahneman. There is no "the heuristic." He wrote about lots of different heuristics in System One.)

Here's an idea. Go through the past threads here on OL if you seek wisdom while sitting on the learned knee of that fool. You already have some of the pseudonyms. Look them up. There are gazillions of posts. I want no new conversations with him (or her or it or them or whatever the hell that neurotic fraud is).

Otherwise, please stop. This is the second time I'm talking about it.

I sure as hell hope you are not that person in a new incarnation...

Michael

[ilstar]

Okay, Michael, I will look at more of his posts.

[ilstar]

Michael, so you think that her simplification of Kahneman's heuristics to "the heuristics" (potentially to save time rather than explain all of them) is the best argument to show that she is crazy and fake?

Do you regret thinking that "Eva has a fine mind" and "a beautiful mind as it matures" (link)? You surely aren't her "kindred spirit" now or "resonate with that spirit" (ibid.). All this proves to me is that you rushed in your evaluations of Eva, and potentially you hurried when you banned her as well.

And to think that I am Eva or those type of people who write "daffy-nition" and such is ridiculous. You know you can tell from the writing style about the person? Does my style remind you of how Eva, Andie, or Bill write? Please, do not rush with your decisions or judgements. Judgements based on false premises lead to contradictions.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael, so you think that her simplification of Kahneman's heuristics to "the heuristics" (potentially to save time rather than explain all of them) is the best argument to show that she is crazy and fake?

Ilya,

You are having the same difficulty tracking a simple statement that person had. I wrote "the heuristic," not "the heuristics." Singular, not plural. Crazy comes from several things and fake comes from the enormous amount of sockpuppet accounts.

But enough. I will not discuss this person any longer.

This is the third and last time I am mentioning it.

If you insist on talking about this person, I will put up some restrictions on your comments starting with the next one.

As I said, there is an entire Internet to discuss crazy people on. May I suggest you avail yourself of it? Including your own site.

Michael

(btw - This condition does not apply to regular OL folks. Only newbies like this guy who show up with some kind of agenda.)

[ilstar]

Ilya,

You are having the same difficulty tracking a simple statement that person had. I wrote "the heuristic," not "the heuristics." Singular, not plural. {...]

Sorry, that was a misspelling on my part. Indeed, "the heuristic."