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Cole,
No way! I have never heard that mistake before, but, yes, I should have said “present-at-hand” at 53:20 in the video. Ooh, actually, that is very Heideggerian: I am so familiar with what I expect myself to say there that I don’t even notice that it is wrong when I am listening. You know, it’s like “intentional perception” in my example of seeing squiggles on a board and seeing “B” or “13”. I didn’t even hear my mistake.
So, to be clear, death is a present-at-hand break in our timeline that should cause us to study our ready-to-hand tools and ready-to-hand tasks and reveal the whole world of ready-to-hand projects to re-evaluate their worth. Death lights up that ready-to-hand world. So, what I am saying is, your last paragraph is brilliant.
Thanks, Jeff
But notice that they are disagreeing about whether the claim is true or false, based on their perspectives. This still makes it clear that these are truth claims. Value claims are a different beast, because they allow for matters of degree. These claims about the movement of celestial objects are yes or no issue, not judgments of quality.
In other words, perspectives are different than subjective criteria. With truth claims, once the proper perspective is understood, then the claim is either true or false from the vantage point. This is different than two authors have different criteria for their values.
An example: That table looks narrow and pink from this angle and in this light, but it looks wider and red from this angle and in this light. Given those perspectives we can asses whether those descriptions are accurate. And then we can ask about the actual shape and color of the table from above and in bright, white light. Colors and shapes are objective qualities that, once defined, can be settled by evidence. Whereas if we were asking if this is a “good” or “beautiful” table, then our authors could disagree and both be right, because their disagreements aren’t about the objective qualities, but about the values of those qualities in how each judges goodness and beauty. Gus thinks a practical and durable table is good and beautiful, whereas Sue prefers fragility and fashion in her furniture.
Cole,
Just wait until we muddy this all a bit in the next two weeks as we discuss Plato and then Heidegger. Until then…
The simple answer is to make note of your key point about the need for clarity and then include the limitations of perspective…
So, first, like the rain example, when we ask the author what they mean by “The sun moves around the earth”? They must surely mean that “the earth is still relative to the sun and the sun moves in orbit around it.” And then we can definitively say that the person is mistaken due to their limited perspective. The sun only looks like it is orbiting the earth, because their viewpoint is spinning, making it look like the sun moves relative to them, when really the viewer is moving. So, their claim is a truth claim. It either orbits around the earth or doesn’t, and we can imagine a God’s eye view that could settle it.
Whereas if we make the claim more esoteric, say, “The sun moves in the sky from my vantage point on the earth”. Then, we would need more clarity to see what would make it true or false. So, we could ask them:
“Are you claiming that it ‘looks like’ it is moving or are you saying that the sun actually moves across the sky relative to the earth?”
Both are truth claims. The first claim is true…and just a claim about what they see. Similar to a claim like distant objects appear smaller than they are. The second is false.
And in the background of this is the way people often commit deceptive wordplay to skirt around taking their claims seriously. You know, it is like the person who says, “God exists”. But when you press them on what they mean so that you can see how it could be verified, their conception is empty of reality. They really mean something like “God is this feeling I have that everything is going to be alright”. Okay, fine, so their claim actually comes down to whether that feeling exists or not. I’m getting dizzy now. People are weird.
Jeff
Brianna,
Yes. Quacks, Wingspan, Pandemic, Codenames, Mysterium, and Azul are great. The Crew is one of my all-time favorites.
I have Bohnanza but still haven’t gotten enough people together to play it…dang it!My 2-player recommendations for you, based on your list, would be Targi, Battle Line, and Lost Cities.
-Jeff
