[MD] What does Pirsig mean by metaphysics?

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Steve:
This attitude [Dewey's] 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." 

Steve replied:
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 says:
Hmmm. Could it be that you didn't notice who was saying, that "answering questions" about why we should be kind or not be cruel is "a job it cannot do, and which defines itself as unable to do". Rorty said that. I mean, the question is not about Rorty's personality traits or his own moral sensibilities. It's about the consequences of his pragmatism or the effects of his philosophical position. I understand that he has reasons for holding "the position that philosophy is incapable of addressing ethical issues", as Hickman puts it. "Rortian postmodernism" ties our hands morally, Hickman says, because Rorty thinks "there is no adequate common denominator for human experience." What I don't get is why we need an ahistorical foundation to address ethical issues. Who ever decided that foundationalism and groundlessness are the only two options? That's my point, really. The classical pragmatists reject both of those options. 
Steve said:
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 says:
I don't know fulfilling what philosophers of the past have promised but I fail to see why experience isn't good enough to address ethical issues. Pirsig grounds his MOQ in experience and it discusses morality and values all day long. So what's the problem? Why are we "incapable of addressing ethical issues" just because there is no such thing as eternal truth or whatever? This kind of all-or-nothingism always baffled me. 


Steve said:
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 says:
Well, first of all, it's not just me. There is no shortage of Rorty critics, especially among the pragmatists in academia. What Hickman and others point out is that the pragmatists sought to reform metaphysics whereas Rorty thinks we should just drop it altogether. Same with truth theories and epistemology. I'm trying to show you that Pirsig, James and Dewey differ from Rorty about what to do AFTER the attack on modern foundationalism has cleared the way. You see how Pirsig in Lila first rejects positivism, traditional empiricism and the assumptions of SOM but then goes on to adopt an expanded form of empiricism, namely radical empiricism. He adopts the pragmatic theory of truth as well. This is not something Rorty would approve of and in fact adopts only selected parts of Dewey. Hickman and others see this as an injurious misreading of Dewey, a misrepresentation of Dewey. Basically, all agree with the deconstruction part but Rorty goes a different way after that. His work is almost entirely negative whereas the classical pragmatists add a positive project, a reconstruction project after the demolition. 


Steve said:
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...

dmb says:
I never subscribed to "the notion that the Metaphysics of Quality claims to be a quick fix for every moral problem in the universe". But we certainly are talking about relativism here. In the same way that there is a middle ground between absolutism and relativism, there is a middle ground between foundationalism and utter groundlessness. Professionals like Hickman are using the term "platform" to describe a provisional, modest kind of ground to stand upon.
"Dewey's commitment to evolutionary naturalism stresses the commonalities which can serve as platforms on which global publics can be formed and from which they can be launched. Second, the Pragmatic method has implications with regard to cultural conflict, and consequently the problem of relativism. Pragmatism, as I have characterized it, advances a moderate version of cultural relativism but rejects a stronger skeptical version known as cognitive relativism."

A self-described cognitive relativists explains that it "takes as its object judgments in general" and it "is based on two theses: 1) The truth value of all judgments is relative to some particular standpoint (otherwise variously referred to as a theoretical framework, conceptual scheme, perspective, or point of view). 2) No standpoint is uniquely or supremely privileged over all others." (from a 1996 issue of PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM)
To the extent that first thesis describes perspectivism it is consistent with classical pragmatism, Hickman explains. But "the second thesis is somewhat more complex", he says, "but if it is taken to mean that with respect to judgments in the general sense all perspectives or standpoints are equally valuable, or even that they are equally valuable for the solution of specific problems at hand, then it is inconsistent with the experimental methods of classical Pragmatism." Inquiry, he says, "usually tends to render some perspectives or standpoints tenable and others untenable". "...one of the core features of Pragmatism is its perspectivism. But the Pragmatist's perspectivism is the result of limited access; it is not the result of intellectual promiscuity."

If I understand Hickman rightly, the cognitive relativist thinks we need a God's-eye view or a uniquely privileged standpoint in order to say that some perspectives are better than others and they differ from the pragmatists on this point. The pragmatists emphasis on experience as the test of truth, on experimentation and inquiry, lets us get at the relative merits of the various perspectives without anything so grandiose. James and Hickman both use a metaphor from a third pragmatist, whose name escapes me. Pragmatism is like a big hotel with a different kind of inquirer in each of the rooms. They all there own perspectives, their own areas of interest but they all must pass through the corridor to get to their rooms. The pragmatic theory of truth is something they all have in common, meaning each of their perspectives will be tested in experience, which is the only place where the word "truth" has any meaning. This is what keeps the occupants from being intellectually promiscuous and yet it allows for an unlimited number of different perspectives. 










 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390709/direct/01/