| | Starting points must be certain -- we have to "know" (not merely "believe") what it takes to light a room; before we can discover how to light it with the same or greater lumens, at the same or better cost. It has to be known (not merely believed) what it costs to light a room, before we can know if we have made the kind of progress that we have.
Scientific method starts wth a well defined problem and then collects relevant data, doesn't it? An affirmative case for debate begins with a proposal, perhaps that more efficient and less expensive ways to light a room are needed. Then comes a history of the status quo, what it takes now to light a room. This is followed by supported contentions and a plan which meets the need identifed in the proposal. Finally, a summary lists the advantages of accepting the plan and adopting the proposal. My post on Women in Combat is an example of such an affirmative case. (Nobody is takng the negative yet.)
Some starting points are not certain. They are merely starting points. It doesn't really matter where we take the first step of a 500 mile journey, as long as we don't take it after the 2nd step. And liniar movements are being experimented with in literature. Not all stories are chronological. Some use flash-back and all sorts of novel ways of organzing.
Some people here like the traditional approach to essay writing; into, body, and conclusion. Others like stream of consciousness, rambling, covering points along the way. Many works in philosophy are not well organized, but there are important points made. Nietzsche wrote much of his stuff in aphorisms, loosely connected, deliberately trying to be unsystematic.
Much poetry is very ambgious. Not very clear and certain, yet we think it enlightens us somehow.
Existentialists start with themselves. They exist first. Then, they work on their natures. They don't think of it as being born into a pre-existing mold on a course they have to discover. "It is existence prior to essence." The Objectivist thinks man's essence is already there, as the oak tree is in the acorn. "It is essence prior to existence." I think this conflicts with freedom, even if the Objectivist litereature doesn't.
NickOtani'sNeo-Objectivism holds that there can be both existentialism and essentialism. There is a humaness which exists prior to man, a human nature into which man is born, and there are natural laws which exist prior to man, like gravity exists even when nothing falls. However, there is also room within those fixed and universal parameters for freedom, for a human to participate in working on his or her own nature.
Chew on that or awhile. I've got to go talk to William.
bis bald,
Nick
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