Even philosophers need to eat, so I took a job as a Child Welfare Specialist with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS). It's been a little over a month now, and I love it. You can read about what I do here (I work in Permanency Planning).
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that foster families are in short supply, so if you have what it takes to be a foster parent, please do! Click here for more info.
So why child welfare? Well, I did not choose it "because I love children". I have two children of my own, and I love them, but I have no special love for children in general. Rather, I took this job out of a general concern for the future well-being of mankind. And because I need to eat.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Whither the Beginning?
Wittgenstein said: "It is so difficult to find the beginning. Or, better: it is difficult to begin at the beginning. And not try to go further back"
But where is the beginning? Language and behavior? Experience? The primordial world?
There cannot be language and behavior without experience. (is that supposed to be a substantive hypothesis?) There cannot be experience without a primordial world (i.e. a world that is mind-independent). But we cannot talk about (or describe) the world without taking the world as we experience it as a given. But then we are not talking about a primordial world at all...
Here we have found a philosopher's Gordian knot.
It might be best to begin with what we say and do. Nevertheless, it is tempting to take the world as we experience it to be the beginning for all we say and do. And yet there is something enlightening in going beyond that. Or further back.
But all the while we must not forget that the mind is part of the world (i.e. not independent of it). The world as we experience it is mind-dependent, and that is all we can describe. The primordial world is mind-independent, and cannot be described. But isn't the mind part of the primordial world? Mustn't it be? (This question contains a conceptual error, but there is something correct about it).
Yet all the while there is only one world, not two. There is no beginning — we cannot go "further back" because there is no logical way to order our conceptions here. We must jump right in, and wrestle with this Gordian knot.
But where is the beginning? Language and behavior? Experience? The primordial world?
There cannot be language and behavior without experience. (is that supposed to be a substantive hypothesis?) There cannot be experience without a primordial world (i.e. a world that is mind-independent). But we cannot talk about (or describe) the world without taking the world as we experience it as a given. But then we are not talking about a primordial world at all...
Here we have found a philosopher's Gordian knot.
It might be best to begin with what we say and do. Nevertheless, it is tempting to take the world as we experience it to be the beginning for all we say and do. And yet there is something enlightening in going beyond that. Or further back.
But all the while we must not forget that the mind is part of the world (i.e. not independent of it). The world as we experience it is mind-dependent, and that is all we can describe. The primordial world is mind-independent, and cannot be described. But isn't the mind part of the primordial world? Mustn't it be? (This question contains a conceptual error, but there is something correct about it).
Yet all the while there is only one world, not two. There is no beginning — we cannot go "further back" because there is no logical way to order our conceptions here. We must jump right in, and wrestle with this Gordian knot.
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