[MD] The Greeks?

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Mary,

Mary said:
The levels are but a representation of reality.  Given a 
choice, would you prefer to access the representation or 
the thing represented?

Matt said:
This is what I would call a fake choice, between a 
representation and a thing-in-itself.

Mary said:
Yeah, poor choice of words.  I have almost exactly 2 
minutes to respond right now before I am late for something, 
so let me just say quickly that the "thing represented" I was 
referring to was not an objective reality, but Dynamic Quality, 
or more precisely, an acknowledgement that DQ is available 
and underlies all, since as we all have had pointed out to us 
by the MoQ, there is no objective reality.

Matt:
Perhaps just a poor choice of words, but linguistic habits are 
a large part of philosophy, and I think (largely accidental) 
Kantian interpretations of Pirsig's static/dynamic distinction is 
a large part of what I see in some interpretations of Pirsig 
and what I spend my time trying to work people out of.

For example, say we repeat what you said but explicitly 
with Pirsig's vocabulary: "Given a choice, would you prefer 
to access the static patterns or Dynamic Quality?"  It's 
still a fake choice, because in practice, in the moment of 
experiencing, it supposes that we _know_ which is which.  
But what I call Pirsig's indeterminancy of Dynamic Quality 
thesis cogently says that that ability is unavailable: "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)  We experience life, of 
course, in a constant state of choosing the best option 
we feel is available, but the distinction between static 
and dynamic cannot help us with those choices because 
it is too abstract: because if Hitler had learned the 
Pirsigian vocabulary, he would have said _he_ was being 
Dynamic (this is what I once called the "blood, race, and 
soil" interpretation of the MoQ).

Unless somebody is willing to say that the Dynamic Quality 
choice is not always the best choice (which reverts you to 
ZMM problems about the good and reasonable), there's no 
theoretical answer to what Pirsig called the central problem 
of the MoQ's theory of evolution: "how do you tell the 
saviors from the degenerates?"  Analogously, to go back to 
religious imagery and the Pirsigian Church, how do you tell 
the saint from the heretic?  Pirsig posed the problem himself 
when he repeated the old chestnut that there's nothing a 
priest hates more than a saint in the steeple.  But how do 
you tell which is which, which a step forward (me) and 
which a step back (Bo)?  (And parenthetically adding your 
opinion doesn't dissolve the abstract connundrum.)

The problem of philosohical rhetoric, of the choice in 
vocabulary a philosopher makes in explicating what they 
think, is the only reason I might be inclined to favor the 
Reader of Philosophical History in recommendations of 
vocabulary.  When one wonders whether a particular 
vocabulary (i.e. system) works or not, there are two ways 
to construe the question: is it consistent? or is it 
effective?  The first has to be a lead into the second, but 
the second cannot be judged solely by the first.  
Effectivity must, at some point, be about a philosopher's 
ability to win chess matches with her neighbor.  And the 
trouble with philosophical chess, is that usually 
head-to-head opponents don't agree on who the winner 
was, which means success largely depends on your ability 
to convince the audience watching the match that you 
were the winner.  (But even here, that doesn't properly 
end a philosophical match, which properly has no ending.)  
And if this description seems pernicious, think of it this 
way: it's your ability to convince your audience to pick 
up some of the moves you displayed.  Which, given my 
Pirsigian metaphor, is your ability to showcase and 
convince your audience to use your vocabulary in 
confronting situations (whatever they may be).

And what the Reader of Philosophical History has on her 
side is that she has watched the contours of philosophical 
battle over a long period of time, which puts her at particular 
kind of advantage when suggesting what little vocables, 
particular bits of philosophical rhetoric and system, might 
produce what kinds of effects on a particular kind of 
audience.  It doesn't mean she's necessarily right, just as 
no philosopher knows for sure whether she or her opponent 
is _really_ the right one.  But we make our judgments as we 
go, and the Reader has that extra merit, perhaps, of having 
seen a lot of chess matches and a lot of different kinds of 
moves.

Which is what leads me to say this: representationalism is 
the name Richard Rorty came to use for what Platonism 
turned into after Descartes and Locke, and in most cases 
he suggests we stay well away from that metaphoric 
because of the empty conundrums it produces which add 
no practical help to the situation: like, given a choice, 
would we choose static patterns or Dynamic Quality?

Calling it an "an acknowledgement that DQ is available and 
underlies all" is technically right, but consider further how 
far that acknowledgment gets you.  What do we _gain_, 
what further can we _assert_ from that point?  I'm arguing: 
not as much as Descartes and Kant certainly thought.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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