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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: t-this, t-that - no more?
Message-ID: <978@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Aug-83 18:36:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.978
Posted: Wed Aug 31 18:36:44 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Sep-83 02:59:10 EDT
References: <380@houca.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 48

We obviously disagree about this one. I am tired of having to
restate my original position AGAIN, and AGAIN, and AGAIN. The problem
being that the people do not accept my definition of whatever, but go headlong 
into their own definition of whatever. Thus I have to drag them away from
their own definitions before I can actually do anything akin to
communicating with them.

What do you do? If you ignore them, others may think that you have
given up your position. If you blast them publically, you get lots
of hate mail. If you try to explain where they went wrong you get
X number of other people who decide that the way philosophical
discussions work is for them to try and formulate their own definition of
whatever, and then see if you can explain why yours is not the same thing
as theirs -- or worse, you get people who cannot formulate their own
definition but give you a never ending stream of examples to combat.

This is very tiring. I decided to use "t-rationality" in an attempt to
see if I could avoid the whole issue. I reasoned that if the terms
were understood, then there would be no added confusion, and in addition
people might be more aware that they could not talk about "t-rationality"
without keeping in mind their interpretation of what you meant by the
word "rationality". Perhaps I am overly optimistic. For the people
who did not understand, I figured that an explanatory note would be
sufficient.

I inferred from mail from Alan Wexelblatt, who suggested the device to me,
that it was a common device that people who are well read in philosophy
would instantly understand. As I read more and more philosophy, I see it
more and more often, with supports this belief. 

How do other people deal with this problem if they do not resort to
philosophical jargon? Personally, I do not find jargon distasteful except
when it is used to obscure, which was not my intention. Indeed, I
believed that I was being more precise.

I do not fully understand what you (Tom Craver) mean by "rationality".
It is interesting that what I do infer from your articles is rather
close to what I call "compassion". Clearly either my definition of
compassion is non-standard (very likely) or your definition of
rationality is, or both, or the distiction between compassion and
rationality is artificial. Given that everyone I know makes a
distinction, I tend to reject this last hypothesis.

If I ever get around to discussion compassion, I expect I will have a
very up-hill battle in expressing my views. What am I to do about this?

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura