On Fri, 23 May 2003 12:05:43 +0200 (MEST), Christian Hofer wrote
> Hi Jan,
> 
> > the point: you and i both know that there is something which cannot be 
> > expressed by text (e.g. pictures) - so i have proved that there exists 
> > something which cannot be named by writing it in textual form.
> 
> if you just read the first chapters of Hegel, Phaenomenologie des Geistes...
> (I don't know the English title.)
> Or read: G. H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society
> Or: Ch. S. Peirce, J. Piaget, J. F. Searle, C. Levi-Strauss etc.
> 
> The questions you ask have been answered a long time ago by philosophers.
> You are victim of positivist thinking: there is no such thing as a physical
> reality of objects. Objects are the abstractions we make to get a 
> grasp of physical reality. The medium of making abstractions is 
> language - this is why we can make abstractions while animals don't.
> 

no i am not victim of positivist thinking (my opinion). objects ARE the 
abstractions we make to get a grasp of physical reality - i agree with this 
sentence and believe in it. so perhaps, the misunderstanding is that you 
thought i do not think like that - i think. i consider the statements in the 
above paragraph (and paragraphs below) to be correct.

but thank you for explicitly mentioning the view you have just written about.

> The "objective reality" (can one say it like that in English?) is the
> reality of action. You experience the world by acting in it. You 
> learn the rules of the world by that: the physical as well as the 
> social rules. This is the task every child has to do: learn that it 
> is rules which constrain us, but which on the other hand are the 
> medium to express ourselves (i.e. the real world is what you get 
> when you abstract from the immediate sensual experience).
> 
> If we communicate about pictures, about feelings etc. we use 
> language. This is the only way to express ourselves, this is the 
> only way to get a grasp of the immediate experience of reality 
> (which has - in terms of Hegel - no reality by itself).
> 
> There is a huge difference between "sense" as meaning and "sense" as 
> sensual experience. The first is abstract, the second is concrete. 
> It is the first that constitutes social reality (and one of its 
> abstractions: physical reality)
> 
> Christian
> 
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