>my thesis is that, similar to Platonism, I believe there universal
>concepts. Where I diverge from Platonism is that I don't think these
>concepts are utterly abstract and separated from consciousness. To the
>contrary, the "Forms" only exist in that they are particularly
>expressed.
I guess this just seems a little impractical for the purposes of
understanding a language. For who's to say that all those Greek words that
you're calling reflections of "love" are really getting at the true "Form"
of "Love"? Or perhaps AGAPAW is a fairly accurate rendition of "Love," but
FILEW is an incredibly flawed attempt at grappling with "Love." No matter
how much "ultimate truth" their may or may not be in your position, it
doesn't seem entirely useful as an answer to a question -- for it itself
raises many questions.
Then too there's the danger of confusing synonomy with identity. Perhaps
AGAPAW and FILEW are both, more or less, under the umbrella of "Love," and
so may sometimes (perhaps even often) be translated interchangeably. But
perhaps there are also times when there are important dinstinctions between
the two. It seems that, in the end, context must be critical for making
such evaluation rather than a belief in "semantic domain" or a belief in
full-nuance-translation. This certainly seems to be the case in the
English language where, for instance, "I feel affectionate towards Maria"
and "I cherish Maria" may be interchangeable, but one can say "I cherish my
weekly paycheck," but not really "I feel affectionate towards my weekly
paycheck."
Nick---
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
"There is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."
(Booker T. Washington)
--- nickc@iquest.net egapemenos@aol.com ICQ#6683715 ---