OMG, I just resurrected the synthetic a priori, didn't I?
You did, and it's a load of old Kant ;o)
I am not saying that there are not meaningful statements that can be applied to 'everything that can be described', and that would indeed be an important part of the definition and description of 'everything that can be described'. Given time and a patient audience one could probably say quite a lot that was meaningful about 'everything that can be described'. But there is a significant difference between 'everything that can be described' and 'everything'. So that even if those parts of 'everything' that cannot currently be described would indeed behave as predicted when they became describable, at the present moment in time - which is what matters to us - since they are not describable they are not encompassed by any other description than 'everything'. That, I think, is the difference between what you are saying and Kant - he was focussing on prediction, you are trying to find universal statements that do not allow the leeway of prediction but are genuinely universal.
Hence... And that's why everything-statements are useful and meaningful: they provide the premises from which everything follows. The problem with such a statement is that it is only provable if you can come up with such a non-trivial everything statement. Can you?
Certainly 'everything is text' is not one. Something that is not describable cannot be a text, even if we can predict that it will become a text if it ever does become describable. (And it is beyond laughable to suggest that 'everything is queer' is one!)
Which of course is why people start to reach for meta-physics at this point...
Have I mentioned that I dislike philosophy intensely?
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Date: 2008-02-24 09:22 am (UTC)You did, and it's a load of old Kant ;o)
I am not saying that there are not meaningful statements that can be applied to 'everything that can be described', and that would indeed be an important part of the definition and description of 'everything that can be described'. Given time and a patient audience one could probably say quite a lot that was meaningful about 'everything that can be described'. But there is a significant difference between 'everything that can be described' and 'everything'. So that even if those parts of 'everything' that cannot currently be described would indeed behave as predicted when they became describable, at the present moment in time - which is what matters to us - since they are not describable they are not encompassed by any other description than 'everything'. That, I think, is the difference between what you are saying and Kant - he was focussing on prediction, you are trying to find universal statements that do not allow the leeway of prediction but are genuinely universal.
Hence...
The problem with such a statement is that it is only provable if you can come up with such a non-trivial everything statement. Can you?
Certainly 'everything is text' is not one. Something that is not describable cannot be a text, even if we can predict that it will become a text if it ever does become describable. (And it is beyond laughable to suggest that 'everything is queer' is one!)
Which of course is why people start to reach for meta-physics at this point...
Have I mentioned that I dislike philosophy intensely?