Micah Tillman

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Feb 28th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 4 Comments |

I have a new article up at The Free Liberal. You can read it here.

Tags: Hillary Clinton, Value Theory

Posted in Philosophy, Politics

4 Responses to “A Lesson in Value Theory for Clinton”

on 05 Mar 2008 at 11:36 pm1Seamus

Your article becomes a commentary on what she means, and the quotes: “universal health care” is “a core Democratic Party value” shows how it is valued by the DNC; “a Democratic president who shared my values . . . ” explains how she finds him to have some goodness (in her opinion); and “working out a lot of different issues that are important to our national security and our foreign policy and our values . . .” shows how they are important to Americans.

The essay, no offense, is more of a language lesson and less of a lesson in philosophy/politics.
on 06 Mar 2008 at 10:20 am2Micah Tillman

I’ve gotten the same kind of response before. I’ll write something which I think is vitally important, and then someone will ask if what I say isn’t just all about language.

I won’t argue with you about the article not being about politics. I didn’t intend it to be. I wanted to show how Clinton’s use of language showed that she has (and most Americans [since they also talk as she does] have) a flawed theory of value.

Language is one of the primary ways in which we reveal things/the world to ourselves and each other. The way Clinton et al. talk shows that they do not understand how things are (at least when it comes to the nature of value/importance/worth/etc.).

But to argue that Clinton was wrong, I had to show both the negative consequences of her way of looking at value (it “forestalls debate,” it leads to relativism) and the simple falsity of its implicit idea (which I have encountered more than once in papers by students who use the common, Clintonian language of “values) that to be good is to have values, and to be bad is to not have values.

I’m always open to learning more about the nature of things, however, and if you think (a) that I didn’t say in the article what I said in the previous paragraph, or (b) that what I said in the previous paragraph was just a minor point in my article, or (c) that what I said in the previous paragraph is about language, not value, then explain away! :-)

I’d also be interested to know what you see as being a language lesson as opposed to being a philosophy lesson.

(Though, I’ll always remember Nietzsche criticizing the philosopher’s “faith in grammar” or “syntax” or something. *grin*)
on 06 Mar 2008 at 9:39 pm3Seamus

It’s a language lesson because of the different denotations of the word are being used in different (and appropriate) moments.
on 07 Mar 2008 at 1:51 pm4Micah Tillman

Hmmm.

We need to have a face-to-face conversation on this one. I thought I showed that the way she used the word “value” was completely inappropriate (and for philosophical reasons). *grin* But having to do this via posted responses is so slow (he said mournfully).

I’ll see you in class on Tuesday, if nothing else. :-)

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A Lesson in Value Theory for Clinton

4 Responses to “A Lesson in Value Theory for Clinton”

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