Re: Shared Vision Tough Spots LO877

Jim Michmerhuizen (jamzen@world.std.com)
Fri, 21 Apr 1995 20:59:55 +0059 (EDT)

On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, Michael McMaster wrote in LO837:

> Jim asks if we could "do it all with stories"? And what would the place
> or need for theory be?
>
> What if theories are just stories with special "rules"? That is, for this
> type of story, you must meet certain conditions.

I don't think so. This might lead us down some unsupportably technical
paths, but we don't have to go there: roughly, a) the conditions that make
a theory theoretical are exactly the conditions that make it not be a
story, and so it just can't be that a theory is "a special kind of story".
One is not a subcase of the other.

>
> I'm just reading "Ishmael" a novel that, so far, is wonderfully simple and
> apparently fairly complete introduction to postmodern thinking. (That is,
> postmodernism as an approach to seeing the world as various social
> constructions of reality and having flexibility with dealing with these.)
>
I've been wondering what you eat. Who wrote it? I'll try it.
-----
Host's Note: Daniel Quinn is the author of Ishmael
-----

> As I read, I keep having vague feelings of embarrassment that I take such
> a "rigorous" and wordy approach to do what the author is doing so simply.
> So far, I'm not sure much is gained in this matter by calling my story
>
Looks like some words missing, but the spirit is there. I've felt that
way about Borges' stories.

Isn't there something of value in that sense of embarrassment we feel in
the presence of a story like that? I mean, something worth thinking about?
Isn't it an excellent counter, for example, to the temptation identified in
Marilyn Darling's remarks in LO836?

Regards
jamzen@world.std.com
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