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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Free will - some new reading..
Message-ID: <1427@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 08:15:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1427
Posted: Tue Aug  6 08:15:21 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 04:36:28 EDT
References: <217@yetti.UUCP> <> <106@gargoyle.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 39

> Could any response be more revealing than this?  Instead of reading
> at least the first and last chapters of Dennett's book, which address
> precisely the objections that Rich is making and go a hundred miles
> beyond him, Rich decides he knows all he needs to know from the
> book's title.  I'm not sure at this point why anyone continues this
> "debate" with Rosen. [CARNES]

Could any response be more revealing than this?  Instead of describing
what he learned from this brilliant book's first and last chapters,
Carnes decides al he has to do is point me to them.  I wonder whether
some people who spend their time pointing people to books have actually
learned anything from them that they have actually integrated into
their knowledge base and can use in discussion.  Sometimes I thnk such
people look for books like this that they hear will support their point
of view, browse through them, understanding little, then reaching the
part where the author says "Thus, what you believed originally when you
picked up this book is actually true", saying "Aha!  I was right!", but
not quite knowing why enough to explain what they had learned.  Instead,
they point people to the book that was "so convincing".  If Carnes had
learned anything discussable from the book, I'm sure we'd all have heard it.

> Do you remember in your undergraduate philosophy courses, how there
> was always one guy who monopolized the discussions with his
> ill-founded objections to everything the professor and the readings
> said?  "Aristotle must have been a dope, because obviously blah blah
> blah...."  

Do you remember in your favorite newsgroup or other, how there was always one
guy who spent a lot of time quoting other people's works at length and 
saying "See?" without any apparent understanding of the text?  That man's
name was Ken Arndt.  It still is.

Frankly, I'd rather hear the students raising their "ill founded objections
to everything the professor and the readings said" than just hear the
professor babbling on to a herd of nodding sheep.  ("An unorthodox opinion?
Get out of my classroom! ...  What?  A disagreement?  You go with him!")
-- 
"Wait a minute.  '*WE*' decided???   *MY* best interests????"
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr