“...conversing with those of past centuries is much the same as travelling.”
D’s is an obvious observation I guess, but he reminds me of Hume in the Essays, commenting endlessly and subtly about the ‘moral character’ of various people in various places. I think the subject of traveling is always fraught with the tension I noticed at the beginning of part 1 of the Discourse: how can you tell if someone strange to you is rational? Should you conclude that they must be rational, because all humans are rational? Or should you conclude they are rational by examining what they do and why they do it, the same way you’d conduct any empirical study? Traveling raises this more acutely because a tourist always has to solve the rationality-of-strangers problem. No less for we intellectual tourists.
“It is good to know something of the customs of various peoples, so that we may judge our own more soundly, and not think that everything contrary to our own ways is ridiculous and irrational, as those who have seen nothing of the world ordinarily do.”
So how do we unpack this metaphor? What does D mean by the ‘customs’ of various peoples? What’s the analogy to reading here? Does he mean something like what the author we are reading thinks as a matter of his/her habits? What could intellectual customs mean here? And how can that help the ‘traveler’ reflect on their own ‘customs’? The analogy seems to invite lots of Wittgensteinian mischief.
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Timothy Chow on the NF consistency proof and Lean
13 hours ago
4 comments:
I personally don't think all humans are rational. I think there are certain circumstances that make us extrememly unrational and it's impossible to tell if somebody who you don't know well could be experiencing one of these "unrational moments"
I don't think humans are rational. I mean when you really sit down and think about all those people out there, how can we all be rational? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps nobody is rational. If you seriously think about it, all the ways our minds work to come to simple answers or conclusions - is there any such thing as rational thought? What might me considered normal thought processes for me might seem completely absurd to another. I think it's the "intellectual customs" of a specific person that will help form their opinion towards human rationality. If I were define intellectual customs I would think they'd have something to do with the way our minds work and how we think. Isn't it our habits or customs that help us determine the rationality of others as well as helping others determine whether or not we ourselves are rational?
“It is good to know something of the customs of various peoples, so that we may judge our own more soundly, and not think that everything contrary to our own ways is ridiculous and irrational, as those who have seen nothing of the world ordinarily do.”
When Descartes says 'customs' I think he means other peoples thoughts and opinions. Therefore, when we know the opinions of other people we are more likely to analyze our own opinions more vigorously. And in that, not think that all the opinions that go against ours are wrong or stupid. He says in the last line that the people who don't wish to learn of others opinions are more apt to think that everyone else is irrational. I think that Descartes in right in what he states in this passage. I agree that it is best to learn other peoples thoughts so that you may question your own thoughts and possibly get more answers out of the situation just by doing so.
Like Rizzo and Guinto said, I don't think all humans are rational. More like Guinto I don't think anyone is rational. Everyone's thoughts and ideas are different and their is no custom that is said to be the right custom. So, how can we judge which is rational and which is not? Your customs are only what you have accepted as your own, not whats normal or whats not.
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