Subject: Re: [lojban] [OT]Argumentum ad elephantum

From: Edward Cherlin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 03:04:39 -0800

On Thursday 14 February 2002 11:20, John Cowan wrote:
> And Rosta wrote:
> > You are in effect saying that the narrator is claiming that the
> > text has the status of a historical document.
>
> Not necessarily as such: the story can be true or false. But
> within the story, the authorial voice claims that the six blind men
> are referring to the same object, *and* that it is an elephant. 
> This is rank metaphysical spookery.

Nonsense. 

The blind men asked someone who could see to guide them to an 
elephant. The author didn't place them beside an elephant by 
omniscient authorial fiat. He does not have to say whether this 
sighted person was correct. We are allowed to assume that 
"what-the-author-described-as-an-elephant" (le xanto) was actually an 
elephant (pa lo xanto), without insisting that he made that claim 
himself. Of course, if we want to play with the supposition that the 
blind men's guide was wrong (unbeknownst to the narrator, even), then 
we can have even more fun with the situation. But nowhere is there a 
claim that the narrator knows more about elephants than any other 
sighted person. 

The real issue, I suppose, is whether someone is making the claim to 
know the ultimate truth in whatever epistemology. This is not the 
function of the narrator. He does not say that he has seen the True 
Elephant[TM] in complete detail. The claim is just that those who 
argue loudly about religion demonstrate thereby that they don't know 
what's important about it. Like, for example, Creationists. We can 
agree that they don't have all the answers without claiming that we 
do.

> The point of the parable, surely, is that we all see things from
> our own limited perspectives. But the poem is self-undermining,
> because of the existence of an authorial voice who uses "the
> Elephant" = lobi'e xanto, and says "all of them are wrong".  

I don't see how we can insist that he says more than "le xanto". 
(What does bi'e mean here? I know only of its use for modifying 
precedence in mekso.)

Anyway, he says,

They argued loud and long,
And all were partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong.

which I also claim *without knowing whether it was really an 
elephant*, and I'm not even the author (and I'm not all that accurate 
about elephants, either).

> This
> voice can only be the voice of omniscience, 

That strikes me as a severely limited perspective.

> and if there is such a
> perspective, then the notion of limited perspectives falls apart.

Thanks anyway. This whole exchange has done a lot to illuminate the 
arguments about the True Nature of Lojban on this list. (It must mean 
this! It can't mean that! Must! Can't!)
-- 
Edward Cherlin
Generalist
"A knot! Oh, do let me help to undo it."
Alice in Wonderland