So I was reading MacIntyre on incommensurability and untranslatability, summed up: "Where two large-scale systems of thought and practice are in radical disagreement...there is and can be no independent standard or measure by appeal to which their rival claims can adjucated, since each has internal to itself its own fundamental standard of judgment. Such systems are incommensurable, and the terms in and by means of which judgment is delivered in each are so specific and idiosyncratic to each that they cannot be translated into the terms of the other without gross distortion." One need look no further than the U.S.'s politics in the Mid-East to see the ramifications if this were even potentially the case. Even with a likelihood of incommensurability being total, and no possibility of debate succesfully crossing the systems in any meaningful way, we must continue as if this were possible. We must act on the potential that there is something constructive to be gained, bec...
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