Re: [Leica] Is digital photography necrophilia?

["Jon" <jon.stanton@comcast.net>]

This is what happens when I am tired and I get my user groups mixed up..

">>But if you have a conception of 'circular' argument according to which
even Descartes' cogito is circular (which, by the way, a great majority of
philosophers throughout history have thought to be anything but trivial and
uninteresting), then the problem seems to lie with your account of
(trivially)circular arguments, and not with Descartes' cogito. I'm still not
sure under what conditions you're willing to say that an argument is
'circular' (and hence useless as an argument that really proves
anything). -Sean

Perhaps my conception of circular arguments *is* flawed, but if so, that
isn't the case simply in virtue of the fact that a great majority of
philosophers throughout history have thought cogito to be interesting. =)
The cogito is an argument with one premise, first of all. When conclusions
are drawn from very simply statements, I expect to see analyticity at work.
(As an example: There are bachelors, therefore there are unmarried men.)  I
take it that the cogito can be formulated something like the following,
where S probably represents something like the property of being Scott
(myself):

(Ex)(Sx & Tx) --> (Ex)(Sx)

You may fault my predicate logic here if you like, or my practice of turning
a particular into a universal. =) In any case, I think I'm characterizing my
construal of the cogito with enough specificity for you to see why I'm
calling it circular.

>>What reason do you have for finding this argument 'trivial' other than the
fact that Descartes' thinking entails Descartes' existence? After all,
that's what his argument should do, if it is deductively valid.

I think the "I" entails the existence of the same "I." The thinking is
irrelevant. If I eat, there's an eating thing that exists. If I sleep,
there's a sleeping thing that exists, etc...


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