Tuesday, September 9, 2014

What all wobbles

Words are wobbly. By that I mean, that they do not fit perfectly upon that to which they refer. Take any flower, just as a point in case  a point is needed. You cannot describe one flower in a meadowful, so as to lead another person TO THAT EXACT FLOWER, by means of your description. 

Words do not know this, because of course words don't know anything. They are part of people's thinking. People though rarely know this,-- that words wobble -- and I have to wonder if this is not a sign of their insecurity, their reluctance to face the limits of their own knowledge. And by people, I mean published, academic, philosopher, and everybody else. 

And why the defensive fencing off of part of reality as irrelevant? At least you might say, well the underlying reality, whatever that means, in the words of Prince Charles, you might say the underlying reality, the flower itself in all its glorious individuality, that does not wobble. 

At least the bloom does not wobble more than you could calculate from a mathematical analysis of the air currents surrounding it. 

You can say that, you can say anything. But you would be wrong if you think the underlying reality does not wobble. You would, let me rephrase this -- you would be wrong not to consider that the underlying reality, words and all they specify and all they cannot specify, all that can be apprehended, and all that maybe cannot even be apprehended, with any talents, -- ALL of that, may be wobbly. At least sometimes wobbly. Some philosophers knew this. Baruch Spinoza, Jan Cox. 

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