Oh good, Robt. I didn’t mean to be humorless, just wanted to be sure I hadn’t offended. Of course, to those uninterested in such issues, all intellectual debate, or all debate about difficult and abstract issues (including physics and astronomy) can look like hairsplitting. On the other hand, the narcissism of small differences is certainly a real hazard in intellectual debate. One may fall into drawing a distinction without a difference.
While I’m confident that the distinctions I’m drawing are important within the debate over structuralism, I do worry that perhaps I’m the only one who would be interested in pursuing that discussion. Well, the good thing about discussion boards is that the audience is self-selecting – I just hope I won’t chase people away permanently who might be interested in other issues I also would like to discuss. With that said, I’m going to forge ahead on structuralism when I get the chance.
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