academic commentary

Thomas Bitterman · 01 Dec 2010, 02:30 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: tom at bitterman.net (Thomas Bitterman)
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:30:41 -0500
Subject: (urth) academic commentary
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2010/11/30 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com>

> Thomas Bitterman wrote (30-11-2010 18:55):
>
>> 2010/11/30 Ant?nio Pedro Marques <entonio at gmail.com
>> <mailto:entonio at gmail.com>>
>>
>>
>>    Thomas Bitterman wrote (30-11-2010 02:22):
>>
>>        Another way of looking at it.  The question is "How did Wright
>>        miss/not
>>        include an obvious (and likely superior) interpretation that any
>>        careful
>>          reader would read?".  The answer is "Because it made him feel
>>        uncomfortable".  This looks like a clear case of arguing against
>> the
>>        author rather than the thesis.
>>
>>    But is it more complimenting to answer "Because it's above his
>>    league?"? I
>>    certainly don't think that's the case.
>>
>> That is a false dichotomy.  There are other ways to answer which do not
>> involve speculation on Wright's personal properties.  I would even
>> suggest that the question itself is not helpful/applicable to
>> understanding a non-fiction thesis.
>>
>
> At the end of the day the fact remains that Wright left a certain path
> unexplored and that demands an explanation. And that is lacking. It should
> have been made explicit from the onset.
>

Wright's thesis stands or falls on its internal logic and ability to shed
light on the material.  It is not dependent on what he didn't do except in
so far as a different theory might be better, and that is a separate
argument.  It certainly doesn't depend upon any imagined reasons for why he
did/didn't come to different conclusions.

Of course if one views speculation over a person's choices as speculation
> over the person, then any answer will look like just that.
>

When the speculation takes the form of "Person X made bad choice Y because
they have property Z" then sure, it looks like that.

 Craig Brewer has a good post on another thread with the same name
>> describing how he sees Wright's method.  I agree with him.
>>
>
> Craig's view(s) fall within what I consider(ed) 'inconvenien[ce]' - the
> 'third' interpretation is not interesting (in an epistemological sense) from
> the point of view of Wright's method. Craig may have nailed it, but that
> doesn't mean questions aren't justified.
>

If Wright came on the list and said "Yup, I didn't pursue the 3rd level of
interpretation because it made me uncomfortable as an atheist", would that
be enough?  If not, what would be?  If so, how does that affect the truth of
his thesis?  Trying to figure out why he did or didn't make a particular
argument based on a personal property is idle speculation.
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