pynchon agnostic? II

[thomas kyhn rovsing hjoernet]

On 02/03/03 2:13, "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:

> on 1/3/03 11:42 AM, prozak at anus.com at prozak at anus.com wrote:
> 
>> > I find some religions abuse categorical thinking in a form called
>> > "dualism"; gnosticism seems to me, as something derived from an older
>> > religion in which such artificial abstractions did not exist, an
>> > intermediate step and one that is less destructive.
> 
> I'm not sure about "categorical thinking", but I agree that the physical
> "truth" of a bullet hole in the chest is incontrovertible.
> 
In order to operate with this Œtruth,¹ you depend on concepts such as
Œphysical,¹ Œbullet,¹ Œhole,¹ Œchest,¹ not to mention Œtruth.¹ That is, you
depend on (a) language and on its divisions, designations, etc. You need a
defined concept of Œtruth,¹ incl. criteria, etc. ŒTruth¹ depends on a system
in which to evaluate correspondence or identity; two singularities cannot be
nominated instances of the same, i.e. identical, unless that Œsame¹ has been
established as an abstract category that different phenomena, etc. may fit
into. This, of course, is not to claim that what we would call Œa bullet
hole in a chest¹ is without Œconsequences.¹


Thomas
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