MikeBGene@aol.com writes
in message <a0.26a2f64.260bc7fb@aol.com>:
<snip>
> I'm afraid my interpretation closely and logically follows
> the written intentions of Dennett. But I bore of this topic.
I can see, generally, that you believe you know Dennett very
well. Whereas I'm forced to read his writings without a notion
of what kind of person he is, you apparently know the man right
down to his rotten core and his intentions are crystal clear.
Well, you could be right, I admit that. If he does hate
religion that much, he probably would agree deep down with
such an interpretation.
But I consider it prudent to interpret a person's writings only
to the extent that the words permit, and we have seen that the
simplest, most straightforward interpretation only allows us to
conclude that Dennett's language is careful to avoid the
interpretation that Dembski accidently (a sloppy reading still
remains the simplest explanation for his misquote, in my opinion)
reads into it. A methodology that allows us to extract any
meaning from text as long as we believe it is consistent with
the author's intent is fraught with problems, not the least of
which is a complete disregard for the very probable existence
of our own preconcieved notions.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 23 2000 - 16:59:10 EST