Every now and then, on a Friday, I\u2019ll step into the deep waters of Philosophy, ramble on some idea and maybe even interact with something I might be reading. Most of the time, a real philosopher could probably read my drivel and speak into it offering a corrective\u2014but for now I\u2019ll speak from ignorance. After all, it is Friday; what better way to have fun than with philosophy. In this post I\u2019ll muse upon the road of good intentions\u2014no, not hell.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen this in plenty of discussions in an area where there\u2019s vast disagreement: \u201cyes, that\u2019s important but it\u2019s not the main point\u201d. What the person is wanting to do is point out that although the details of whatever is the subject are present, they are not as important\u2014or perhaps even subsumed\u2014underneath the main purpose of whatever X subject is. Or, more succinctly, they want people to stop getting lost in the details but focus on the overall picture.<\/p>\n
So if we were examining what this hammer is for, we might wind up with two sides (though you can easily envision more): generally speaking, one side explaining the parts of the hammer and the other side explaining the essence of the hammer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d says the Essence \u201cthose details are important but they aren\u2019t what a hammer is for!\u201d Basically, they\u2019re looking at the purpose of hammer to define its hammerness<\/em>.\u00a0 Though, it might just be that the idea of \u201chammer\u201d that we have isn\u2019t because there is some essential thing about hammers (like for banging nails into beams)\u2014it may just be that the things that cause a hammer to be a hammer are just as important to the intentions of needing a hammer.<\/p>\n On the other hand, an individual saying what necessitates a hammer is such and such parts also falls short. After all, can\u2019t you use a hammer to dig up weds? Doesn\u2019t that mean that the pieces of a hammer are just as important as its purpose and actual usage? Hammers exists not only because of the parts (handle, head) but because of what it is to do (bang into things) and because it is<\/em> used as such (someone, somewhere hammers things).<\/p>\n But what if a person rejected the details in favor of the purpose: what makes a hammer a hammer is purely the intentionality. In that case you lose any distinction from hammers and bats. They are surely different objects but they can both be used for the same things, even if poorly. And then we shouldn\u2019t really add an idea of maximal intentionality because you can always conceive of a better, less-flawed, better striking hammer.<\/p>\n What this all winds up meaning is that the details to what makes a hammer a hammer are just as important as the purpose of the hammer behind the hammer. Maybe it\u2019s all obvious when studying insects like ladybugs or clownfish, but you have to wonder if it changes when you look at other things\u2014like text.<\/p>\n The modern mind might say yes, it does change (though the postmodern mind will expand on that). It doesn\u2019t matter so much what the text says as long as we understand the purpose of the text (or the intent of the author). So if we know that the purpose of this letter is to attract that girl, then the way the writer describes things are important but are defrayed by the intentionality.<\/p>\n But is that right? You arrive at the purpose by means of the details of the text and in conjunction with the intentionality of the author. Postmodernism would point out that the text is void of author intentionality (they\u2019re not often labeled Love Letter) and now is coupled with reader-intentionality but even with the different lenses, the details of the text are connected to intent.<\/p>\n In the end, what one should conclude\u2014after some philosophical wrestling\u2014is that purpose, or intentionality, doesn\u2019t preclude the points used to arrive there; if anything the points combine as a means and the very fabric of intent but can\u2019t really exist apart from it. This is much more than symbiotic: it is necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every now and then, on a Friday, I\u2019ll step into the deep waters of Philosophy, ramble on some idea and maybe even interact with something I might be reading. Most of the time, a real philosopher could probably read my drivel and speak into it offering a corrective\u2014but for now I\u2019ll speak from ignorance. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,339],"tags":[681,679,680,428,682,678],"class_list":["post-2715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human","category-philosophy","tag-details","tag-intentions","tag-means","tag-philosophy-fridays","tag-postmodern","tag-purpose"],"yoast_head":"\n