Diane's message made me think that maybe it would be an interesting task to
determine a historical and cultural practice that makes extracting
individual contribution from the flow of activity and assigning it the
credit of "originality" important. Not all cultures are concern about
"originality" of ideas. Some actually value tradition over originality and
some disvalue authorship all together. So why we are as we are?
Eugene
----------------------------
Eugene Matusov
School of Education
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
office: (302) 831-1266
fax: (302) 831-4445
email: ematusov who-is-at udel.edu
WWW: http://ematusov.eds.udel.edu
-------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Diane HODGES <dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, March 08, 1999 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: originality
>1. Greek Philospher Parmenides: - the first to reflect on the logic of
words
>
> - The first to suggest that Motion is an illusion. (Becasue there is no
>such thing as "empty space": space can only be described as "where the real
>thing, that which is, was not." Like you can never nknow what has
>pre-existed your engagement with it - either perceptually or actively -
>sound familiar?
>...So where you have NOT got that which 'is', you obviously only have that
>which i 'not; (ergo), all you can prove is that which does not exist:
>although that seems unlikely, how to prove what doesn't exist, I mean, is
>premised on the assumptin that whatever you were seeking WAS there just
>prior to the
>claim upon it - in the moment of knowing, we cease to know.
>
>2. Aristole: realizing this was nonsense, he contrived a formula for
>determing what was contained by space: determine the boundaries of any
>particular space and measure what is within those boundaries.
>Obviously, within the boundaries of space what occurs can be identified as
>"there", as opposed to what is not that what it is that you seek. And in
>the boundaries drawn, stuff moves. Parmenides was saying motion can't exist
>as an independent phenom, I think...
>
>These are two examples, I think, of original ideas. Aristotle was
>elaborting on...who...Eucledian geometry> no, can't recall.
>But, the thing about original ideas is that there is no way to recognize
>them except in-relation to what we already presume to know; and as such,
>our presumptions about what we think we DO know change whatever might be
>original
>by framing it into existent meanings.
>
>Original ideas, like anything odd, are rarely recognized because
>they offer no touchstone of familiarity.
>
>anyhow. I do think Parmenides, however poetically deluded, was the first to
>use logic as a word play to substantiate a proposition, which he did, as a
>poet, to
>establish that truth cannot be proven, and all we can do is demonstrate how
>reality is contained by the words we rely upon. (Wittgenstein?)
>
>another original idea /in media: "Absolutely Fabulous: - Brit sitcom
>written by Jennifer Saunders, possibly the brightest and most intelligent
>commedienne working; has free reigns at BBC to do whatever. Show has been
>since cancelled, but was it original? oh ya.
>
>Finally: Fibre-Optic Arts, which use plastics and light to create
>repreentations of objects (e.g. an elephant head) that, when cast through
>light,
>impersonate neural activity. I think that is a first, for plastic arts.
>
>Lots of original ideas: just hard to spot 'em.
>
>
>I recall reading Piaget state that the origins of congition were
>irrelevant to understanding how it develops, and I have NEVER
>resolved that rationale.
>diane
>