Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!chinet!jjd
From: jjd@chinet.chi.il.us (Joe Durnavich)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: re anti-rationalism
Message-ID: <1990Jan17.233823.26957@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 17 Jan 90 23:38:23 GMT
References: <8060@unix.SRI.COM> <12975@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: jjd@chinet.chi.il.us (Joe Durnavich)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 29

Roger Lustig writes:

> As far as changing the past goes, I'm a historian by trade.  I invent
> the past every day.  I haven't the foggiest idea what really went on
> back then, but I collect evidence and try to put together a picture that
> makes sense -- to me and others in my trade.  New evidence rewrites that
> picture every time.  
> 
> And you know what?  That picture IS the past, as far as we're concerned.
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Whatever the "reality," we know nothing but the picture.

You must have a definition of "picture" which is different from the
usual one.  A picture, most people would say, is a type of representation
of some object.  To fully understand the word "picture" then, one needs
knowledge of the representation (the drawing, snapshot, etc.), the object
(the house, the nude model, etc.), and the relationships between them (you
can't live in the drawing of a house, etc.).  Yet you claim that one
cannot have knowledge of objects (in your case, the past), or perhaps,
that the objects themselves are only pictures (as far as we are concerned).
If that's the case, then your definition of "picture" is either circular
or it is not the usual one.

What I think you need to support your view is to provide a grounding
for the concepts "picture," and more generally, "representation."

-- 
Joe Durnavich
jjd@chinet.chi.il.us