[MD] What does Pirsig mean by metaphysics?

[Steven Peterson]

 Hi DMB,

BMB quotes:

> ,,,Dewey gave up the word, but not the enterprise. As for the enterprise,
> or what he had accomplished in terms of reconstructing the traditional
> discipline of metaphysics, he happily stood by that. And why? Simply because
> the point of recognizing generic traits, as he put it, 'lies in their
> application in the conduct of life: that is, in their MORAL bearing provided
> MORAL be taken in its basic broad human sense' (LW 16.389)."
>
> This attitude is compared to Rorty's. Hickman quotes him saying, "Liberals
> have come to expect philosophy to do a certain job - namely, answering
> questions like 'Why not be cruel?' and 'Why be kind?' - and they feel that
> any philosophy which refuses this assignment must be heartless. But that is
> a result of a metaphysical upbringing. If we could get rid of the
> expectation, liberals would not ask ironist philosophy to do a job it cannot
> do, and which it defines itself as unable to do." Hickman adds,...
>
> "Of course there is an irony that Rorty may not have fully appreciated. The
> positivism he dislikes and the postmodernism he apparently likes, share an
> interesting trait: they both hold the position that philosophy is incapable
> of addressing ethical issues such as the ones that Rorty raised in the
> passage just quoted. In the case of positivism it is because such issues are
> consigned to the jam-packed realm of everything that is noncognitive. In the
> case of Rortian postmodernism, it is because there is no adequate common
> denominator for human experience."
>
> In the Dewey quote above, the emphasis on the term "moral" is emphasized in
> the original. By contrast, Rorty thinks our hands are tied morally and the
> best we can have is "groundless social hope".




Steve:
Rorty doesn't think "our hands are tied morally." He thinks we should avoid
cruelty. He just doesn't think that philosophy will ever make good on its
promise to provide an ahistorical foundation for our belief that we should
avoid cruelty.


DMB:

> So which version of metaphysics do you suppose the MOQ is?


Steve:
I don't think that Pirsig claims that the MOQ is that sort of foundation
either.

DMB:

> As I see it, Dewey and Pirsig both expose the positivist's
> anti-metaphysical stance as itself based on metaphysical assumptions and
> they both see that kind of scientistic amorality as a pretty serious
> problem, as one of the central targets in their criticisms of modernity.



Steve:
Agreed.


DMB:

> In that sense, I think, they'd view Rorty's stance as part of the problem,
> as a particular version of the problem. In both cases, radical empiricism is
> part of the solution, the pragmatic theory of truth is part of the solution,
> reintegration of the affective domain is part of the solution and all of
> this is grounded in experience. Experience becomes the common denominator in
> this reconstructed naturalistic metaphysics.
>

Steve:
Experience can't serve as the sprt of foundation that philsopher's of the
past have promised. It can't give us any to the question, "why be kind?" can
it?




DMB:

> I think metaphysical assumptions are the sort of thing you always have
> whether you think about it explicitly or not. They're like opinions.
> Everybody has them and most are just unexamined inheritances. For a
> pragmatist, the question is not about whether or not our assumptions
> correspond to the way reality really is but rather how well do our
> assumptions work in experience. How well do the ideas function in explaining
> the past and guiding the future?



Steve:
We all certainly make assumptions. The question is, what makes an assumption
metaphysical? For Rorty, the claims that he calls metaphysical are the ones
that you agree that pragmatists don't want to make. It sounds like you and
Rorty don't so much disagree here but are just using the word to mean
different things.



DMB:

> As the moral concerns discussed above show, pragmatic truth is not just
> about bald expediency of course. But we really do need ideas that don't
> paralyze us with respect to basic things like promoting kindness and
> preventing cruelty. As I see it, if your stance won't allow that, then it
> isn't any good and it's time to get a new idea.


Steve:
Of course we can and should promote kindness and oppose cruelty, and we are
in no way paralyzed if we follow Rorty anymore than Pirsig is promoting
relativism when he says,

"I've concluded that the biggest improvement I could make in the Metaphysics
of Quality would be to block the notion that the Metaphysics of Quality
claims to be a quick fix for every moral problem in the universe. I have
never seen it that way. The image in my mind as I wrote it was of a large
football field that gave meaning to the game by telling you who was on the
20-yard line but did not decide which team would win. That was the point of
the two opposing arguments over the death penalty described in LILA.That was
the point of the equilibrium between static and Dynamic Quality. Both are
moral arguments. Both can claim the Metaphysics of Quality for support. Just
as two sides can go before the U.S. Supreme Court and both claim
constitutionality, so two sides can use the Metaphysics of Quality, but that
does not mean that either the Constitution or the Metaphysics of Quality is
a meaningless set of ideas. Our whole judicial system rests on the
presumption that more than one set of conclusions about individual cases can
be drawn within a given set of moral rules. The Metaphysics of Quality makes
the same presumption."

Best,
Steve