Originally posted by carpedm9587
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And with the car-example, I’m more than willing to dumb down (your words) anything you want. But what I will not concede is any attempt on the part of the learner to define the tools that the mechanic has mastered. I will not call ‘oil’ a kind of ‘window-washer fluid’. In philosophy, the tools are little more abstract, so it won’t be as clear cut in our conversation. But you have wielded the terminology in an idiosyncratic way. I’ve pointed that out and have charitably clarified how the terminology ought to be used, and how it’s in fact used by the professionals. If you are unclear about any term I’ve used, I will be more than willing to clarify any part of it.
In no way am I trying to bury you in knowledge. We can - if you want - go concept by concept, post by post, and nail down any ambiguities you happen to be struggling with. I have absolutely no problem with that. But I will say that you are entering into the world of Ethics, a branch of philosophy with its own nomenclature and vocabulary and concepts - and the humility of a student entering a realm as a novice should want clarification from the teacher and not settle with their own stipulative usage of the terms, especially if such usages don’t jive with the way such terms are used in the literature. We should have the humility to let the experts in a subject matter lay the ground for us, ground that hasn’t been easily won, the result of thousands of years of contemplation, courage, and painstaking dialogue.
I understand that you’re conceding that your view of morality isn’t incompatible with moral absolutism. That’s all I had been originally trying to demonstrate. I didn’t attempt to show that moral absolutism is true. If you want to go there, I suggest we cut out all the other things that have been mentioned so far, and start afresh. I obviously won’t think that moral absolutism will be unnecessary for fully explaining moral reality and experience. I contend that moral relativism categorically does not do this and has received substantial and debilitating objections in the literature. Please let me know if you want to shift the conversation to this particular topic, and I will happily oblige.
Let me go back to the carpentry example. If you had no idea how to build a window, and I said, ‘Pick up that hammer, and hammer that nail, after sanding down that framing with such and such particular measurements, etc.’, and you proceeded to pick up a nail to attempt to hammer a hammer, and I corrected you and perhaps told you that hammers and nails aren’t meant to be used that way, it wouldn’t be helpful if the student objected that my explanation is guilty of cryptospeak. If I saw that the student, after my explanation, continued to pick up the nails and hammers in the wrong way, the humility of the teacher would tell the student to put the nails and hammers down and listen to what their proper function is until the student understands. The first impulse of the student, after the teacher attempts to teach the student, shouldn’t be that the first syllables of the explanation (if not immediately understood) are in the realm of cryptospeak - because in a certain sense, it will be an inkling of cryptospeak . . . at first - after all, I’m attempting to explain something that you don’t understand using other things that you do understand: there won’t be immediate comprehension in the context of any teaching situation.
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