[MD] Language, SOM, and the MoQ

[David M]

Hi DMB/Matt

Given skepticism or idealism I think MOQ is nearer the later.
But idealism,say in Hegel, tries to tell the whole evolutionary
story and the emergence of subjects and objects from a god
eyes third-person view. Pirsig is therefore closer to phenomenlogy
as taken up by Heidegger as this tries to tell the same story by
starting with experience. Some idea of this approach is indicated
by Dreyfus here:

http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/phi.html


regards
David M


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2005 8:09 PM
Subject: [MD] Language, SOM, and the MoQ


> Matt, DM and all subscribers to the pragmatic theory of truth:
>
> dmb says:
> I had one of those "ah-ha" moments the other day when I was thinking about
> this long-running debate with Matt. DM, I'm hopnig you will add some
> thoughts about Fichte or any other philosopher who might be relevant here.
> First, a brief recap....
>
> Matt said:
> ...I said earlier that both the idea that language can span the gap 
> between
> us and reality and the idea that it _can't_ take part in the pathos of
> distance.  Both have as a common presupposition the idea that there is a
> _gap_ between us and reality and both have suggestions about how to span
> that gap (through language on the one hand and direct mystical experience 
> on
> the other).  When Pirsig says that, since both logical positivism and
> mysticism eschew metaphysics, metaphysics might be the place to mend the 
> two
> together, to split the difference between the two, I think Pirsig takes on
> as conceptual baggage that common assumption: there is a distance.
>
> dmb says:
> I keep trying to show that Pirsig asserts no such gap, apparently to no
> effect. You may recall recent posts in which I quote ZAMM where it says,
> "the world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination".
> Wilber has been enlisted in this cause too and he points out that Kant's
> insights lead not to the end of metaphysics but rather to the beginning of 
> a
> genuine metaphysics, one based on experiential data instead of abstract
> speculations about unknowable realities. And last week I tried to 
> illustrate
> this same point by way of Wilber's description of Fichte....
>
> "The first thing Fichte did was attempt to break the hold of formal
> rationality by demolishing Kant's 'thing-in-itself'. If, as Kant had said,
> the thing-in-itself can never in any way be known, then, said Fichte, it
> doesn't exist. In its place he substituted the power of the productive
> imagination of the infinite and supra-individual Self, which in essence
> meant; it is not that there is some forever unknowable thing-in-itself,
> quite different from consciousness, that impinges on consciousness and
> 'causes' perception; it is rather that there is only one dynamic Life
> process that knows itself in various degrees and from various angles. The
> world knows itself in various ways, and in order to do so it cuts itself 
> up,
> so to speak, into finite subject and finite object - but both subject and
> object issue from that same ground, so their apparent incompatibility is
> never ultimate, and the ground can be recovered in pure nondual 
> perception."
>
> dmb continues:
> I was thinking about this gap and wondering how Matt could persist in
> criticizing the MOQ on this point despite Pirsig's explicit statements to
> the contrary. I was wondering how it could be that we both claim to reject
> the representational theory of truth and adopt a pragmatic theory of truth
> and yet still disagree so much. That's when I decided to open the Oxford
> Companion to Philosophy and take another look at some basics. I read the
> entry for the "pragmatic theory of truth" and it seemed unremarkable until 
> I
> came to the last sentence, where it said...
>
> "...today the debate still rages over whether the relativity to practice 
> in
> this theory of truth entails a type of idealism or scepticism."
>
> It was one of those "kha-ching!" moments. That's it, I thought. That's the
> difference between Matt and I or rather, if I understand it rightly, 
> that's
> the difference between Matt and Pirsig. Matt has adopted a pragmatic 
> theory
> of truth that entails skepticism and Pirsig'sversion entails mysticism,
> which makes him much more like an idealist. (See the Copleston 
> annotations.)
> I suspect there are differences between our debate and the debate that
> "still rages" in academic circles, but it still explains quite a lot.
> Looking back at Matt's repeated concerns about absolute and eternal 
> truths,
> about words "capturing" reality, about finding the criteria for truth 
> within
> contexts and vocabularies, his repeated request to answer "the skeptic" 
> and
> repeated how-do-you-knowisms all point to skepticism. And when Matt's
> rejection of philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular is added 
> to
> these concerns, it becomes pretty clear that Matt's position entails a
> pretty hefty dose of skepticism. (Tellingly, Rorty left the philosophy
> department and signed up with the humanities instead.) I would even go so
> far as to say that the motive for adopting a pragmatic theory of truth 
> comes
> out of a kind of resignation, a sense of futility and represents a kind of
> fall back position or a strategic retreat. That's why he's always 
> shrugging
> and seems to be conducting an entirely negative project.
>
> Pirsig, by contrast, has attempted to expand rationality rather than give 
> up
> on it. Paul Turner recently posted some Pirsig quotes that show this
> intention...
>
> "What's emerging from the pattern of my own life is the belief that the
> crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to
> cope with the situation.  It can't be solved by rational
> means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem.  ...So 
> I
> guess what I'm trying to
> say is that the solution to the problem isn't that you abandon rationality
> but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of 
> coming
> up with a solution." [ZMM, p171]
>
> Maybe we could say that Matt's skeptical postion and the resignation that
> follows from it would be a perfectly acceptable postion FROM WITHIN THIS
> LIMITED RATIONALITY. If you're stuck in the SOM box it makes sense to take
> sides with subjectivity when rejecting objective truth, representational
> truth. But Pirsig isn't just rejecting objectivity, he's rejecting both
> sides of that duality in his expansion. If Quality is subjective, then it
> can be dismissed as "a fancy name for whatever you like". And if he tries 
> to
> claim that Quality is objective, he'll come across as "a nut or a fool or
> both." Quality, he says, is neither physical or psychical, neither 
> objective
> nor subjective, because it logically preceeds both and is the parent of
> both. Quality is the preintellectual reality from which such concepts are
> derived. Subjects and objects are not metaphysical realities with which we
> are forever stuck, they are just imaginative creations, just ghosts, like
> every other concept. This gets us out of the SOM box so that we don't have
> to give up on philosophy or metaphysics, we just have to expand the 
> limited
> rationality that got us stuck in the first place, see?
>
> In the MOQ intellectual truth is provisional and is only one species of 
> the
> good. Intellectual truth takes on a far less grandiose style. focus on 
> "the
> ever changing reality". Like the Sophists, for whom the "object was not 
> any
> single absolute truth, but the improvment of men". The idea here is not 
> that
> language is a tool we use to cope with reality, but that we language users
> are "creative participants", that truth and the whole world is an
> imaginative work of art and we are the artists.
>
> Skepticism vs. Idealism. Whadya think, Matt? Anyone? Is this the crux of 
> the
> difference, or what?
>
> "[Phaedrus] did nothing for Quality or the Tao.  What benefited was 
> reason.
> He showed a way by which reason may be expanded to include elements that
> have previously been unassimilable and thus have been considered
> irrational." [ZMM, p264]
>
> "I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be 
> tremendously
> improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal
> recognition of Quality in its operation." [ZMM, p286]
>
> "Quality is not going to go away and if our system of thought cannot
> comprehend what quality is and lay it out in a rational, orderly form then
> we must modify our whole system of thought to accommodate this existence 
> of
> quality or value in our lives.  The MOQ is that attempt to completely 
> up-end
> and change the entire theory of the universe from a subject-object theory 
> of
> the universe, which has existed in the past, to a value-centered universe 
> in
> which suddenly you have a system of
> thought in which "quality" is a real, usable, rational term and in which 
> no
> destruction is made to subjects and objects as they are conceived in our
> present metaphysics." [Pirsig, AHP Lecture, 1993]
>
> Thanks.
> dmb
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
> http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
>
> moq_discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>