Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 13:40:35 -0500 (EST) From: "Harold F. Schiffman" Subject: Re: Logic, etc Sender: owner-linganth@cc.rochester.edu To: Aaron Fox Cc: Ronald Kephart , linganthro list MIME-version: 1.0 Precedence: bulk Aaron Fox wrote:

And there is always the problem of "Western" (to me a
>meaningless term) Euro-American white men (like me) pronouncing on the nature of "logic" and "reason" which will only be resolved through the (political) process of opening the institutions of science to full human (multi-cultural, multi-lingual, etc.) participation. Despite its flaws, however, I think the holy grail remains an acceptably universal (and acceptably creative and "leaky") conception of "Reason" (or "Logic") itself. (And as I said before, I am especially open to the effects of modality of transmission -- speech/writing; SIgn vs. Speech, etc. on cognitive/cultural differences, within species-specific parameters.)

This white English-speaking male would also like to point out the existence of other logics, e.g. schools of logic in ancient India, including "Buddhist" logic, with their own kinds of "epistemology" etc. I'd have to disagree with Aaron, then; otherwise how did ancient Indian philosophers "discover" a logic that was not consistent with the western type? I think they're both constructed/invented, rather than discovered. Or am I missing something?

Hal Schiffman
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