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Fred Little wrote:
With all due respect, you are resorting to classic straw man arguments and infelicitous double-think.
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I prefer to think of it as highly felicitous doublethink. Which illustrates the absurdity of denying the plain meaning of a relatively well-ascribed statement without some proof to the contrary.
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Fred Little wrote:
I did not make any comment about the utility or inutility of scientific inquiry. Any assertion that I did is categorically false.
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No. You said that I could not know that he meant to conjoin the two. I can. Because he did. Conjoin the two. In his statement, which put them together. Which is his until somebody shows it isn't, instead of merely hinting darkly at unspoken reasons for doubt.
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Fred Little wrote:
With regard to the "compatibility" of metaphorical versus empirical description, I assert that the two modes depend on two utterly different sets of descriptive symbols with utterly different rules of operation and thus, are not directly comparable. ...."compatiblity" or "incompatibility" of metaphorical or empirical descriptions is of less relevance than the possible complementary utility of the descriptions, which is a rather different matter.
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Not in this context. I chose the word "compatibility" advisedly for the context of our art: ."compatible" = "capable of existing together in harmony." Comparability is an entirely different thing
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Fred Little wrote:
While Ueshiba is supposed to have reviewed and approved the text, the apparent fact that it was approved with the stipulation that it be distributed only to yudansha may be taken to indicate that the work was intended as an outline or detailed mnemonic of lessons already imparted through oral and kinesthetic instruction, which was regarded as primary.
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Actually, he was QUITE explicit in several places in Budo Renshu that certain things that he mentioned going along were only really appropriate for showing through training. This forces the conclusion that things he othwerwise stated therein were appropriate to be given -- and in the form that he was giving them.
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Fred Little wrote:
Thus, not only would the role of the text and drawings be secondary, tertiary, or quaternary, not primary, but I would also suggest that the distribution was restricted because the text might be regarded as misleading to an individual who had not received individual oral and kiinesthetic instruction. To put a fine point on it, my assertion is that it can not be shown that the authorial or editorial intention was to approach the "definite" or "definitive," much less that such an intention was successfully realized.
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and your definitive assertion is based a far less foundation than mine in saying that 1) by saying it, he meant it, and 2) by urging one thing and then immediately urging another thing the two things are deemed to be related and compatible.
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Fred Little wrote:
Your position that Ueshiba's language was, on the one hand "metaphorical" and on the other hand so "definite" that you can reify that "definite" meaning into a "definitive meaning" is heremeneutically suspect as anything other than a statement of faith.
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You misread. Only one part of the statement was metaphorical; the other expressly pointed
toward a reified understanding, which was my point. And I am not a "hermeneutical suspect." --- I am "guilty, guilty, guilty..."
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Fred Little wrote:
Your suggestion that anyone has "impeached" the translators is overblown hyperbole.
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True that it would be hyperbole. They merely indicate a desire to do so, and have not actually. And -- that is not what I said.
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Fred Little wrote:
Not that any of the above has jack to do with actual practice, which remains primary.  |
Which I actually think that I did say.
I have a broader and more unitary conception of practice than you appear to.