Tap it

Concepts used in discussions are about referents. It is tremendously valuable when attempting to understand WTF you are saying to be able to trace your concepts back to their referents. Just so that if we reach a sticky point...we can trace back.

This week's hubristic Aretaevian claim is that Aristotle, and Aquinas after him erred badly on this count.

Specifically, the words good and purpose are misunderstood, misused, misappropriated, and generally malfunctioning.

What is valuable? by observation in the world...the word value is applied to specific situations. Eating Bacon is valuable to Bob. Value, the concept, takes a prepositional clause, explaining WHO it is valuable for.

Purpose (final cause) is an even bigger issue. Whose purpose? If I use a fork to eat, the purpose that I am using the fork for is eating. Ditto when Ariel uses the fork to comb her hair...her purpose is detanglement. Trying to use the word "purpose" while escaping the idea that purpose requires an agent is trickery. For instance, "What is the purpose of life?" is a fundamentally failed question. It takes the word "purpose", which we know requires a subject, and attempts to use the word after having separated it from its referents.

So...if someone asks "What is the purpose of life"...the correct answer is: to whom? All observed purposes are agent-purposes...so which agent's purpose are you talking about? Of course, the question kinda screws up the bong-circle, but I guess you can't have everything.

Aside: yes, yes...humans are pattern-creating animals. Since humans have purposes, and especially human-made items have purposes, then if we are hyper-extending our pattern-faculty, we could easily and erroneously start to assume that the rock has a built-in purpose as well. But that's failure of human patterning, not reality talking.

Regardless...this poses the interesting question to those of you (not us) who believe in such a thing as a common Good. Value is always value for someone...collectives don't value...their individual agents do. What the hell are the referents you're addressing when you refer to the common good?

Or...as we used to say in college: "Tap it." Take your meaning back to stuff you can touch. Otherwise we can assume it's incoherent.