Primal

You are approaching these issues from the wrong direction: social and individual development is mainly a problem for scientists not philosophers.

Critical theory is basically just a philosophy based on psuedoscience(marxism and freudianism) for people who are basically just upset that capitalism did not fall and wish to rationalize why Marx was wrong.

If you really want to learn about social/psychological development read Jared Diamond, Frank Sulloway and Steven Pinker. Men who employ geography,biology and cognitive science for answers to historical and psychological problem: not marxism or freudiniam: which are dismissed by scientific circles. This entire post makes your credibility look bad(at least to anyone who is a skeptic or scientifically literate.)

Primal

Likewise you should perhaps tell us about how Derrida "proved" how the Einstenein constant was not really a constant at all(nevermind Derrida wasn't even a physicist).

John Page

I would say only that it is a kind of Difference , see item 13 in this link. On the other hand, in the final analysis, all differences are incommensurable,

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

Not wishing to drag this thread off-topic, in the light of this comment i wonder if you'd comment on that Critchley quote above? It so happens that i agree with you, but that's another thread...

John Page

Nicley put, Critcho! Of course some of them would be actual contingencies, rather than contingent contingencies. But then, given perception's ephemerality, there are no things that are absolutely actual, which makes them absolutely contingent.....

Cheers, John

jpbrooks

Thanks. Yes, it does. Sorry for the late reply.

True. And Hayek does seem to be such an individual. Though I confess that up to this time, I have been reading him more as an (Austrian) economist than a social theorist. This forum is certainly stretching me to think in directions that I wouldn't ordinarily think on my own.

Derrida is difficult reading for me at present. I'm still struggling through Foucault!

Hugo Holbling

It's nice to see someone making the effort.

Thanks for the link. I assure you Derrida will be worth the trouble, as is Foucault.

Gurdur

Nonsense. It's for both.
Untrue and irrelevant.
More nonsense, and a completely fallacious personal attack.

As a person myself with just a bit more than just scientific literacy, and as a hard skeptic, I assure you that both philosophy and science are necessary to understanding the human condition ---- and moreover Hugo Holbling's post was an excellent exercise in philosophy.

Gurdur

I personally believe them to be somewhat incommensurable to a degree.
It is however a penchant of mine to happily use two such different approaches simultaneously, and then to compare explanations, predictions and results.
More later.

Hugo Holbling

Of course, that's another possibility.

I look forward to it. :notworthy