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"Pragmatic"
by Jan Sand
2008-11-07 08:15:51

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Expedience contains the force
Of most actions of the day.
It drives the busses, wipes the nose
Of children, on their sleeves, at play.
It plugs up holes with chewing gum,
And when this fails, we kneel and pray.
A piece of tape, a crooked nail
Can hold most things whole
When alternates may fail
And if the troubles mount and pile,
It doesn't hurt to have a smile.

Poetry

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Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-07 12:41:58
"Pragmatism," Charles Sanders Peirce wrote in 1903, "is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood." Or, in the form that McGinn may have learned and followed, that ideas have no meaning beyond "if I do x I experience y." And if indeed I do x and experience y, then according to Pragmatism the idea is true - it "works." Thus Pragmatism takes Kant one step farther. Kant allowed that there is a reality which is a source of our conscious experience; he only asserted that our knowledge is limited to and by the nature of that experience, so that we humans may never know, except perhaps by faith, rather than by reasoning from the experience of our senses, what that external reality truly is. According to Pragmatism, the only things that we can know at all are our experiences and actions. The pragmatist holds that it is meaningless even to talk about reality as something external to consciousness, or about our experience as being a result of something external to our own thoughts and actions. Therefore the pragmatist denies that one can meaningfully account for the regularities of our experience by induction or deduction of principles - of conceptual knowledge - about what reality (which to the pragmatist is a meaningless idea anyway) is and how it works.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-07 13:08:50
…These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That inly gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart. Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy. The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye, That mocks the tear if forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe. …… To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemned alike to groan, The tender for another's pain; The unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise. (From “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eaton College” by Thomas Gray).


Sand	2008-11-08 05:58:08
No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority. Robert A. Heinlein


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-08 11:41:54
Robert A. Einlein must logically, or perhaps pardoxically, be an authority of sort in Mr. S.'s mind or he would not have bothered to quoted him. Most giants of the intellect such as Plato, Aristotle, Da Vinci, Kant, do in fact appeal to the authority of reason and not to their puny ego when presenting their arguments. The problem arises when the pigmy of the intellect appeal to reason too, deluding himself that he is at a par with those giants and can dispense with them, when in reality he is merely a narcisist in love with his own image reflected in a pond.


Sand	2008-11-08 12:49:55
I have no doubts that Mr. Einlein might possibly be wrong in his attitudes. My quote was , of course, from Mr. Heinlein who, of course, is well worth listening to. Mental pigmys, of course, seem neither able to think or to spell.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 04:04:43
And so by focusing on typos one avoids the issue. Typical subterfuge.


Sand	2008-11-09 07:23:00
Everybody makes typos once in a while. But when the commenter commits typos so frequently as to make his identity clear by the continuous stream of typos in his submissions it is significant of his mental capabilities.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 08:17:50
Is that what the voices insinuated to you? Funny, they never seem to notice either yours or the abundant and regular typos on others' submissions. Selective blindness and love of linguistic correctness? Could it be that they are slightly biased? You should inquire of them next time they pay you a visit.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 08:30:00
P.S. You may also inform the visiting voices that there is no such word as "commenter," except perhaps in their private solipsistic dictionary. The properly spelled term in the common dictionary of the English language is "commentator."


Sand	2008-11-09 09:04:42
First let me congratulate you. You see, with the proper attention you can rid yourself of sloppy writing and eliminate typos. Your thinking, of course, demands abilities of greater magnitude. If you look up the word "commenter" in Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary you will find it clearly listed. It is doubly unfortunate you are challenged by your limited mind and your inadequate informational sources.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 14:44:28
Tell the voices that according to Google's unabridged dictionary the word "commenter" is not in the dictionary. So much the worst for the real English language? Here is what is listed under "commenter" The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above. Suggestions for commenter: 1. commender 2. commented 3. commentary 4. commentate 5. commencer 6. contemner 7. commandeer 8. Commander 9. connecter 10. commentator 11. countermen 12. common meter 13. commandery 14. comanager 15. keynoter 16. commentates 17. container 18. counterman 19. commentaries 20. Common Era


Sand	2008-11-09 15:01:24
See: http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/commenter


Sand	2008-11-09 15:06:17
I tried the link on Google and it didn't function. Here is the definition from the site: COMMENTER Noun 1. One who makes or writes comments; a commentator; an annotator. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 15:23:30
http://windowsxp-privacy.net/?id=198760161 My Webster Unabridged Dictionary works just fine. See link above. Unless Google too has been listening to strange visiting voices, the word never was in the dictionary or has not been in existence since 1913. Tell the voices to gift you with a more up-dated dictionary next time they visit.


Sand	2008-11-09 15:37:31
Take another look at http://machaut.uchicago.edu/websters


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 16:52:16
It ssys there: Displaying 1 result(s) from the 1828 edition. As I said, ask the voices to gift you with a more up-dated dictionary and utilize the more current "commentator" or people will figure out when you were born and consider you an anachronism of sort.


Sand	2008-11-09 19:52:44
This at the site I directed you to the Webster Dictionary 1913 edition which is contemporary enough. Displaying 1 result(s) from the 1913 edition: Commenter (Page: 284) Com"ment`er (?), n. One who makes or writes comments; a commentator; an annotator. Please stop being a total asshole.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-09 22:57:57
jerk? total asshole? are those the latest inspriration from the voices in your head? Tell them that althought those terms may be in the dictionary they are not generally used by those engaged in a civilized conversation. Only by those narcisists desperately trying to attract attention to the kind of fools they are.


Sand	2008-11-10 06:57:20
You and I are perfectly comfortable still using words used by Shakespeare. Words may go out of style, but they are not like eggs that become rotten. I gave you a 1913 reference which is not all that long ago and you stupidly insist it is older. So be it. Your flagrant exhibition of pompous academic idiocy is very revealing.


Sand	2008-11-10 07:34:45
In all the time I have attempted to point out errors in your approach, Paparella, you have persistently refused to even consider my words in a civilized manner and when presented with incontrovertible proof of your error you have resorted to slander and lies and plain slime to disguise the fact of the emptiness of your responses. To be most kind and civilized in my evaluation of you as a person I can only conclude that you are the worst piece of idiotic intellectual offal I have ever encountered and there is absolutely no hope for engaging you further in a reasonable dialogue to a sensible resolution.


Emanuel Paparella	2008-11-10 11:01:58
"Incontrovertiblem" "reasonable dialogue," "sensible resolution"! Lipstick on a pig? A psychologist would do much with those statements, considering the source.


Sand	2008-11-10 12:27:24
Obviously you're not a psychologist.