I love this discussion of the value of opinions. I find them exhausting. When I was a teenager, my family was talking about nature vs nurture and I was like "It's both" - and my dad, who was a trial attorney, said "that's not a very interesting position, though." Can opinions be interesting qua opinions?
I think so, but it's so eye-of-the-beholder it's probably not worth sharing much. And plus there's levels of interest. If we take 'interesting' to mean 'this has caused me to want to hear or learn more', the opinion you have can be interesting or it can be interesting to me that you have that uninteresting opinion.
I think that latter is an opinion being interested qua an opinion? Either way, your dad was wrong. 'Both' is far more interesting than 'Nurture', because one suggests a complexity (fascinating!) and the other's a closed book.
I love this discussion of the value of opinions. I find them exhausting. When I was a teenager, my family was talking about nature vs nurture and I was like "It's both" - and my dad, who was a trial attorney, said "that's not a very interesting position, though." Can opinions be interesting qua opinions?
I think so, but it's so eye-of-the-beholder it's probably not worth sharing much. And plus there's levels of interest. If we take 'interesting' to mean 'this has caused me to want to hear or learn more', the opinion you have can be interesting or it can be interesting to me that you have that uninteresting opinion.
I think that latter is an opinion being interested qua an opinion? Either way, your dad was wrong. 'Both' is far more interesting than 'Nurture', because one suggests a complexity (fascinating!) and the other's a closed book.