thedaywalker wrote:
would any of you know anything in the material world that could qualify as a purpose? and if not would you then please explain why we have the word purpose if there is only a material world.
I believe that most people experience themselves as having purpose/s. Some extreme materialists might theoretically reduce this experience to physical phenomana, but that doesn't stop the ongoing nature of experience which most people would describe phenomenologically as being of other than material in nature.
I think language gets us into difficulties in at least 2 ways. One, what I would call the Derridean way, where by stating one concept we are necessarily implying the existence of its conceptual opposite, thereby problematising the attempt to affirm or deny that something rather than its opposite is the case. Two, what I would call the Wittgensteinian way, where talking about anything that isn't empirically verifiable as being the case, renders such talk nonsense.
06 Jan 2012, 3:07 pm
