Re: Aph 11 - Organon 6
Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:40 am
Dear John
We need to progress step by step.
You wrote:
" no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none -- but leaving that aside) that any mixture of two medicinal substances will become a single substance (i.e. a compound) given enough succussions and dilutions, the fact is that before that point comes, there are, in the product being so treated, two or more medicinal substances;"
Let us go back to the question you point blank refused to answer and that was about the Carcin made out of a number of tumours.
Those tumours are not 'medicinal substances' - just substances.
Although mixed up when potentised they then become a medicinal substance! (And if and when proved, then it becomes another remedy in our MM.)
So I ask once more - Is it a single simple substance once potentised?
Once I have an answer, I can progress with you.
You also wrote
"no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none "
Is that not a line from the likes of Singh et al when referring to Homeopathy?
Rgds
Soroush
________________________________
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 25 July 2009 08:26
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Aph 11 - Organon 6
Hi, Soroush --
I thought that that may have been your understanding of the situation.
It's never been my contention that Hahnemann must have been, or was, correct about every statement he made.
What I do contend is that it is not possible to falsify Hahnemann's intent in what he said, any more than it is possible to falsify a promise, an order, or a pronouncement of man and wife. Underlying his intent may have been various illusions, misapprehensions, or false assumptions; but the meaning he intended in using any particular term cannot be shown to be either true or false; it merely is.
To take an example close to home: you may believe in angels. I may have modern scientific evidence that what you call angels have no more independent existence than thoughts, because they are entirely the product of delirious hallucination. Yet if you state that what you mean by counting angels on the head of a pin is exactly that, then there is no way in which I can gainsay that intent by producing my scientific proof that there is no such thing as an angel.
Does that make sense to you?
Assuming that it does, let me go on a little further to say that, in similar fashion,
(1) no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none -- but leaving that aside) that any mixture of two medicinal substances will become a single substance (i.e. a compound) given enough succussions and dilutions, the fact is that before that point comes, there are, in the product being so treated, two or more medicinal substances;
(2) Hahnemann's intent in using the word "substance" to indicate substantiality rather than Kent's and Sheilagh's intent in using the phrase "simple substance" to indicate insubstantiality is what is relevant to Hahnemann's meaning of "more than one single, simple medicinal substance"; and
(3) your intent in concocting the phrase "single remedy" to replace Hahnemann's "one single, simple medicinal substance" and Hahnemann's intent in using the original phrase bear no relation to each other and cannot affect each other. Your intent is yours, and it would be nonsensical to argue that your intent was wrong. Hahnemann's intent is similarly immovable: he meant what he meant, no matter how misguided Kent, Sheilagh, or you may regard his views as having been.
That being so, and given that the Duckwater Hypothesis is nothing more than your intent for the term "single remedy", which in terms of § 273 has no meaning, the Duckwater Hypothesis too has no meaning in relation to § 273. You may (and do) call any mixture a "single remedy" if you wish -- whatever you mean by that term -- but, unless you mean by it something identical to some term in Hahnemann's § 273, then it has no relevance to Hahnemann's intent in using the phrase (in order to proscribe its implementation) "more than one single, simple medicinal substance an one time".
Does that make clearer the difference between doctrine (which concerns belief independent of any perception of relationships between concepts) and understanding (which concerns exactly a perception of relationships between concepts)? Does it at least make clearer that my argument concerns not Hahnemann's correctness, which is irrelevant here, but his meaning, which is immune to attack even by Sheilagh, even by Kent, even by rigorously obtained scientific evidence?
Cheers --
John
2009/7/25 >
________________________________
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"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
- Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397-402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)
We need to progress step by step.
You wrote:
" no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none -- but leaving that aside) that any mixture of two medicinal substances will become a single substance (i.e. a compound) given enough succussions and dilutions, the fact is that before that point comes, there are, in the product being so treated, two or more medicinal substances;"
Let us go back to the question you point blank refused to answer and that was about the Carcin made out of a number of tumours.
Those tumours are not 'medicinal substances' - just substances.
Although mixed up when potentised they then become a medicinal substance! (And if and when proved, then it becomes another remedy in our MM.)
So I ask once more - Is it a single simple substance once potentised?
Once I have an answer, I can progress with you.
You also wrote
"no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none "
Is that not a line from the likes of Singh et al when referring to Homeopathy?
Rgds
Soroush
________________________________
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 25 July 2009 08:26
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Aph 11 - Organon 6
Hi, Soroush --
I thought that that may have been your understanding of the situation.
It's never been my contention that Hahnemann must have been, or was, correct about every statement he made.
What I do contend is that it is not possible to falsify Hahnemann's intent in what he said, any more than it is possible to falsify a promise, an order, or a pronouncement of man and wife. Underlying his intent may have been various illusions, misapprehensions, or false assumptions; but the meaning he intended in using any particular term cannot be shown to be either true or false; it merely is.
To take an example close to home: you may believe in angels. I may have modern scientific evidence that what you call angels have no more independent existence than thoughts, because they are entirely the product of delirious hallucination. Yet if you state that what you mean by counting angels on the head of a pin is exactly that, then there is no way in which I can gainsay that intent by producing my scientific proof that there is no such thing as an angel.
Does that make sense to you?
Assuming that it does, let me go on a little further to say that, in similar fashion,
(1) no matter what scientific evidence there may be (as it happens, there is none and can be none -- but leaving that aside) that any mixture of two medicinal substances will become a single substance (i.e. a compound) given enough succussions and dilutions, the fact is that before that point comes, there are, in the product being so treated, two or more medicinal substances;
(2) Hahnemann's intent in using the word "substance" to indicate substantiality rather than Kent's and Sheilagh's intent in using the phrase "simple substance" to indicate insubstantiality is what is relevant to Hahnemann's meaning of "more than one single, simple medicinal substance"; and
(3) your intent in concocting the phrase "single remedy" to replace Hahnemann's "one single, simple medicinal substance" and Hahnemann's intent in using the original phrase bear no relation to each other and cannot affect each other. Your intent is yours, and it would be nonsensical to argue that your intent was wrong. Hahnemann's intent is similarly immovable: he meant what he meant, no matter how misguided Kent, Sheilagh, or you may regard his views as having been.
That being so, and given that the Duckwater Hypothesis is nothing more than your intent for the term "single remedy", which in terms of § 273 has no meaning, the Duckwater Hypothesis too has no meaning in relation to § 273. You may (and do) call any mixture a "single remedy" if you wish -- whatever you mean by that term -- but, unless you mean by it something identical to some term in Hahnemann's § 273, then it has no relevance to Hahnemann's intent in using the phrase (in order to proscribe its implementation) "more than one single, simple medicinal substance an one time".
Does that make clearer the difference between doctrine (which concerns belief independent of any perception of relationships between concepts) and understanding (which concerns exactly a perception of relationships between concepts)? Does it at least make clearer that my argument concerns not Hahnemann's correctness, which is irrelevant here, but his meaning, which is immune to attack even by Sheilagh, even by Kent, even by rigorously obtained scientific evidence?
Cheers --
John
2009/7/25 >
________________________________
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer."
- Sir Humphry Davy, in "An Account of some Galvanic Combinations", Philosophical Transactions 91 (1801), pp. 397-402 (as quoted by David Knight, Humphry Davy: Science and Power, Cambridge, 1998, p. 87)