Thursday, April 07, 2005

Mental Note on Wittgenstein

Calvin is an iconoclast. However, as a Christian who believes in the Trinity he must concede that Christ was a physical embodiment of the one true God. So unlike the Rambam, he can't make the usual open set/closed set distinction (images are bad because they are bounded). Instead images are bad because they are the wrong type of representation. Words are good because they act as the fundamental substrate of inter-subjectivity. Unlike Genesis "In the beginning God created..." Calvin has the Johannian "In the beginning there was the Word..." As the Word is coeval with God that is the only true way of representing God and Truth. Like Wittgensteinian language which is fundamental to inter-subjectivity.

3 comments:

Yehuda said...

Whether or not Calvin was an iconoclast, I don't think Rambam was a topologist.

Zev said...

I am confused. I have been throwing around the word "topology" too often recently (in lieu of better words such as topography and topos), but I do not see how talking about sets (something even Newton knew about) constitutes as topology?

Oren said...

Zev, do you say things like that to make me cry?