rws@hound.UUCP (R.STUBBLEFIELD) (02/15/86)
Individualistic Reason Martin Taylor believes I have misrepresented Tim Sevener. I have sent him several articles to set the context for my analysis of Tim's views. I believe I have captured the essence of Tim's views, not distorted them. Martin, if you still think I've misrepresented Tim after reading the articles I sent you, let me know. An objective view of reason is that it is the faculty man uses to be in touch with reality--an objective reality that is what it is independent of any individual or collective wishes. I hold the following two statements to be facts. 1. Reason is an attribute of the individual. 2. Tim's fundamental view denies the first fact. Martin's statement that I cannot say "*of course* Tim's view is distorted" without holding that reason is a collective process denies the possibility of objectivity. He is saying it is impossible for two people to each judge reality independently and observe the truth of facts one and two and say to one another, "of course." Martin's argument would be sounder if he just argued against point two. By the way, it is true *of course* that Tim cannot literally, consistently believe reason is a faculty of the collective; but if not, then what was his argument to my first article (that reason and force are opposites in the only sense in which these concepts are commensurate--social interaction)? Martin agrees that "reason is `of course' an individual enterprise" and then says that people's beliefs are influenced by whatever culture they live in. This is true but irrelevant to the issue of whether reason and force are in fact opposites. The issue is not what *content* someone has to decide the validity of but what *process* one must use to determine validity. My claim is simple: someone can not give you knowledge by force; and he can give you knowledge by reason. In other words, force, in principle, is the opposite of reason (in the context of social interaction). -- Bob Stubblefield ihnp4!hound!rws 201-949-2846