[MD] Protagoras and "Measure"

[MarshaV]

Matt,

Whoops, what I thought was wrongly quoted was more like confusingly quoted.  It was me trying to clarify a statement Ron had made, but if it led you somewhere, great.   

None of the below (haha),    

Marsha 


On Jan 4, 2010, at 4:22 AM, MarshaV wrote:

> 
> Matt,
> 
> I suppose my use of the world "haunted" was too dramatic.
> 
> Margolis' book is very interesting to someone who thinks conventional reality is relativistic.
> 
> Below I have noted where you wrongly attributed a quote to me.  
> 
> Onward with my reading...     
> 
> Marsha
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 3, 2010, at 6:07 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Marsha, Ron, Andre,
>> 
>> Marsha said:
>> I have been haunted by something I read a while ago:  All 
>> knowledge is to some degree false because it is to some 
>> degree incomplete. ... Margolis says much about adding 
>> Indeterminate to the bipolar truth-values.... I wonder that 
>> DQ is present in every event and it is indeterminate.
>> 
>> Matt:
>> I guess I wouldn't suggest being haunted by the bit 
>> about knowledge because it assumes that we only have 
>> knowledge if we have completeness, and that's an 
>> assumption that I take pragmatism (and the general 
>> aura of relativism) to be moving away from.  Margolis' 
>> "Indeterminate" is much like Pirsig's "mu," and with 
>> Dynamic Quality, your comment would make a lot of 
>> sense alongside what I once called Pirsig's 
>> "Indeterminancy of Dynamic Quality thesis"--"The problem 
>> is that you can't really say whether a specific change is 
>> evolutionary at the time it occurs.  It is only with a century 
>> or so of hindsight that it appears evolutionary." 
>> (Lila, Ch. 17, 256)
>> 
>> I've always thought that there's a problem in putting 
>> together the "indeterminancy" of DQ with the "direct 
>> experience" of DQ thesis.  I've never been satisfied with 
>> the level of activity surrounding that question or the 
>> proposals for solving it.  It seems to me that the 
>> indeterminancy of DQ might have an impact on our direct 
>> 
>> experience of it at the individual level.
>> 
>> Ron said:
>> True/false, non contradiction, are tools to create order 
>> from the flux. Conventions. Useful in the building of 
>> certain types of knowledge, scientific. The metaphysics is 
>> a theory on the building of scientific meaning.
>> 
>> Matt:
>> Marsha and Ron have been bouncing around these ideas 
>> in a series of posts, and I would just add that I think 
>> Ron's probably right about Aristotle, but that when 
>> Marsha wonders about "Law," it is more because of the 
>> history of philosophy that has built up from the Greeks.  
>> The trouble with Aristotle was this notion of "science"--it 
>> revolved around a notion called "demonstration," and 
>> the history of Platonic metaphysics, from its roots in the 
>> "dialectic," goes into Aristotle's notion of "demonstration" 
>> and continues on to its modern forms that Pirsig wants 
>> to tear down.
>> 
>> The question for us shouldn't necessarily be what 
>> Aristotle meant by "demonstration," but rather 
>> recognition that the trail of people trying to make sense 
>> of it specifically _and_ its spiritual descendents have 
>> developed it in a certain, sterile way.  Ignoring what 
>> Aristotle might mean by "demonstration" is a good way to 
>> resurrect Aristotle's utility for our thinking.
>> 
>> Marsha said:                                                                                                      Not Marsha's statement.  
>> So, the Law of Non-Contradiction and the Law of 
>> Excluded Middle are just tools and were never intended 
>> to be used to determine Reality?
>> 
>> Matt:
>> I would suggest making a distinction between "for-now 
>> determining" and "Ultimate Determination."  The dream 
>> of Plato was for Ultimate Determination.  The Sophists 
>> probably understood that all determinations were 
>> "for-now determinings."  Aristotle was more interested in 
>> how we actually determine stuff.  The history of 
>> philosophy might be profitably be read as the rise and fall 
>> of Plato's dream.
>> 
>> So when Ron says logic is "just a tool for building certainty 
>> in meaning in the context of scientific inquirey," and 
>> Marsha shows concern over the "use of the word 
>> 'certainty,'" I would suggest to Marsha that the trouble 
>> isn't the "certainty" bit but what Aristotle might mean by 
>> "scientific."  Building certainty, and then acting based on 
>> whatever little of it we have around, seems to me just an 
>> unproblematic function of life.  The problem was Plato's 
>> dream, which could just as easily be phrased as John 
>> Dewey did--the Quest of Certainty (where what is meant 
>> is "Ultimate Certainty").
>> 
>> And to set up Andre--Protagoras: "Man is the master of 
>> all experiences..."
>> 
>> Andre said:
>> Very interesting Matt but in light of the MoQ its meaning 
>> may be a bit doubtful... . I would think the MoQ would 
>> turn this around and suggest 'experience is the master 
>> of Man'...or to put it in MoQ parlance: Quality (direct 
>> experience) is the master of Man...and to play a little 
>> further: Quality has Man...DQ/SQ is (the master of) Man.
>> 
>> Matt:
>> "Quality has Man"--kinda' like Heidegger's "language 
>> speaks man."
>> 
>> Don't forget, Andre, that Pirsig endorses the Protagorean 
>> maxim.  So we might play around with it, but I don't know 
>> what about it should "be a bit doubtful."  Because 
>> "experience is the master of Man" sounds too much like 
>> the Platonic dream of coming face to face with Reality as 
>> It Really Is, and having that be the truth of us, rather 
>> than us being the measure/master of things/experiences.
>> 
>> Matt
>> 		 	   		  
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