[MD] Language, SOM, and the MoQ

[david buchanan]

Matt and all MOQers:

DMB said:
Skepticism vs. Idealism. Whadya think, Matt? Anyone? Is this the crux of the 
difference, or what?

Matt replied:
Sort of, I guess.  But not really the way you framed much of it.  If you 
were going to cut a difference like that between myself and Pirsig, it would 
be a tonal difference, or a difference in preoccupation.  Like the 
difference between Robert Brandom and Rorty...

dmb says:
Sort of, you guess, but not really? So you're saying yes, maybe and no? Its 
only a matter of tone and emphasis? Its just the difference between two side 
of the same coin, two side of the same street, between deconstruction and 
reconstruction? C'mon, Matt. Gimme a break, will you? I mean, do you really 
NEED to be so equivocal and unfocused. You've already reduced my post to a 
tiny fragment as it is. Can't you at least focus on that and respond a 
little more clearly and directly? I mean, this thing about Rorty the 
deconstructor and Brandom the reconstructor hardly seems relevant. Why can't 
there be deconstructors and reconstructors WITHIN the skeptical camp? It 
seems to me that you've only introduced a different distinction. Are you 
saying Brandom's reconstruction project makes him an idealist? Or are you 
telling me that Brandom is a mystic and that Rorty is OK with that? I doubt 
it very much. I think you're just changing the subject with that 
teacher-student comparison. Its not bad enough to qualify as a Platteral 
shift, but its not good. Its all too slippery and vague. I mean, beyond the 
differences in our perspectives there is also a difference in style. Please, 
I'm begging you to make a choice. Your answer can't be "yes, no and maybe". 
You gotta pick one...

Matt continued:
Your latching on to this way of framing our difference actually strikes up 
exactly what I think is wrong with our conversations.  I can't ever find a 
very good way to move the conversation forward because it doesn't seem like 
you ever want to move it forward.  (The struggle, of course, is that both of 
us feel exactly the same way about the other.)  Take your insistence that I 
reject  "philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular."  That's 
severely misleading.  I'm not sure that I've ever rejected philosophy.  And 
when it comes to metaphysics, you have to distinguish between two kinds: the 
kind pragmatists want to deconstruct (i.e., ones that revolve around the 
appearance/reality distinction) and the kind that simply means "paradigms 
for thought."  The first is something I, and you and every other Pirsigian, 
reject, the second is something I, and you and every other Pirsigian, 
accept.  I've been stating so for many years and our most recent 
conversation, predictably, stumbled accross that terrain.  So saying that I 
reject metaphysics in a way that Pirsig does not either implies 1) you keep 
accidently skipping those sections I write or don't understand them or 2) 
there _is_ something in Pirsig that I may want to reject...

dmb says:
I think option 1) and 2) are both true. There is something in Pirsig you 
want to reject AND I'm having lots of trouble understanding you. First, a 
few words about that trouble. Maybe you see it as mere insult or some kind 
of ploy, but this is why I complain about your jargon, vagueness, 
equivocation and such. This is why I ask questions like, "What skeptic?",  
"Who said anything about absolute truth?", "What's the point and purpose of 
that?" and "What's the problem?". These kinds of questions and complaints 
are all aimed at one purpose; clarity. Often, I have very little idea what 
you mean and most of the time it seems like you really don't want me to 
know. The "vocabularies" thing, for example. I still don't understand what 
that is all about. I mean, of course I understand that "chair" is the 
conventional word to describe those things we use for sitting and that a 
scientist could refer to the same as "a cloud of electrons" or whatever. I 
think a child could understand that much. (How stupid do you think I am, by 
the way?) What I don't get is your point. Seriously. My question is, "Yea, 
so what?" I don't understand what the problem is there. I don't know what 
you think it meant in terms of the discussion we were having. I couldn't see 
its relevance to that discussion. There are gazillions of such examples, but 
that one was especially memorable... Now, even fewer words about option 2). 
Just for the record, as I understand the term, "metaphysics" is a branch of 
philosophy, the one concerned with the big picture, whose aim is a coherent, 
rational picture of reality and I don't think this necessarily entails an 
appearance/reality distinction. But more to the point, the one thing that 
does seem pretty clear about your position is that you follow Rorty in 
rejecting the sublime, the ineffable, the mystical. This is why I thought it 
might be helpful to get at the difference between pragmatic skepticism and 
pragmatic idealism. I'm not saying that idealists and mystics are the same 
thing, of course, but I thought it would get us closer to the crux of it all 
or at least get us in the right neighborhood. But have you noticed that 
we're barely talking about that...

Matt continued:
...So I keep writing my little polemics against things that sound (bad) 
metaphysical, because I
haven't become convinced that all those noises I'm hearing are innocuous to 
the concerns of a negative pragmatist deconstructer.  ...So, in essence, the 
way I see the issue, there aren't two different entailments to pragmatism.  
There are just two different sides to the same coin.  One side is the 
"skeptical of appearance/reality distinction stuff" that I specialize in.  
This was more or less Pirsig's emphasis in ZMM.  The other side is the 
"painting of an alternative picture to Platonism" that I
don't specialize in.  This was more or less Pirsig's emphasis in Lila.  Both 
sides are evident in both books.  Both sides, for that matter, are evident 
in my own writings.  So, it is more or less accurate to say that my 
"skeptical postion and the resignation that follows from it would be a 
perfectly acceptable postion FROM WITHIN THIS LIMITED RATIONALITY."  I'm not 
sure about resignation, but the pragmatist only plays the skeptic from 
within the old SOM box.  He does that to show how SOM doesn't work, because 
as long as the skeptic is a possiblity, it won't.  However, the pragmatist
doesn't make some spurious choice of subjectivity over objectivity because 
he's still trapped in the box.  Like Pirsig, he's rejecting both horns of 
the dilemma and offering a different, alternative understanding of what 
rationality means.

dmb:
Again, you are all over the place. If "the pragmatist only plays the skeptic 
from within the old SOM box" how can he also reject "both horns of the 
dilemma". And how can you say that a pragmatist like yourself "doesn't make 
some spurious choice of subjectivity over objectivity because
he's still trapped in the box"? I mean, this is my characterization of the 
position you hold in a very basic sense. You've rejected "objective" truth 
in favor of a kind of linguistic truth, where truth can only be determined 
within the various linguistic contexts or traditions, which can be describe 
as a kind of intersubjective space shared by those withn these contexts. 
Thus, you've traded objectivity for subjectivity. I'm not saying you're a 
romantic who goes on feelings and instincts. That's quite obviously not 
true. I'm just saying a rejection of objectivity or the appearance reality 
distinction doesn't necessarily mean rejecting the basic assumptions of SOM. 
But a big part of my frustration stems from the fact that your skepticism 
works from within SOM and yet you get trying to apply this same critique to 
the MOQ, which is all about NOT being SOM. That's why your Rortian 
skepticism makes so little sense to me. That's why I keep saying that your 
complaints are not even relevant to the MOQ or to mystical statements.

Matt continued:
Its your failure to understand what I'm up to, by writing things that are 
very misleading about my position, that prompts me to not believe you when 
you say you've successfully rejected representationalism.  Its not out of 
spite, as in "Well, since he keeps punting me, I'll keep punting him."  Its 
because I believe you when you say them.  I think you are being sincere, and 
not just out to slander my position.  But if that's the case, then you don't 
understand me and my concerns and so there's still the possibility that 
there's something wrong with the things you say.  And I try and ferret them 
out on occasion.  Until I'm convinced that it isn't a possibility, then 
there's still a reason for me to be, well, skeptical.

dmb says:
You don't like the way I characterize your position. I can understand that. 
But I hardly see how a failure to reject representationalism follows from 
that. I think you want me to reject it in a certain way and that this level 
of pickiness makes no sense to me. In that respect, you're quite right. I 
really don't understand what you're up to. Here my confusion is pretty much 
the same as always. What's the problem? What's the point? And so what? 
Naturally, I think you share some responsibility for my confusion. The 
things you say are often very unclear. This, for example...

Matt concluded:
I've never said that Pirsig, or anyone else, _is_ a representationalist.  
I've said things like, "Ya' see
this right here?  That sounds like bad metaphysics to me."  The conversation 
then involves me attempting to show why its bad if it ceases to just _sound_ 
like bad metaphysics, but actually becomes it (by showing how the web of 
uses of the words being bandied about produce bad effects), and the other 
person trying to convince me that, no, it just sounds like that, but its not 
really.  "I say 'metaphysics,' but all I mean is the same thing you mean by 
'philosophy.'"  If I heard that from your mouth, I'd feel much better about 
moving the conversation forward and believing you that your tools aren't 
contaminated by SOM residue.

dmb does the same:
I've read this paragraph at least ten times and I still have no idea what 
you want to hear from my mouth. (Or read in this post) And don't you see 
that being on the prowl for "bad metaphysics" all the time only makes you 
into a one-trick pony? This is what's turned you into an incorrible 
hijacker. That might look like mere slander at first glance, but please 
consider the fact that there is a name for such sincere slander when its 
done well, its called "valid criticism." You can take the time to provide 
clear and specific answers for these kinds of objections or you can continue 
to play the poor misunderstood martyr. I'd like to know what you're trying 
to say and apparently you're the only one who can tell, so I think its up to 
you.

I don't think you used the word "idealist" at all in your reply or refered 
to it in any way. You simply equivocated, then dismissed the 
skeptical/idealist distinction and replaced it with a 
deconstructionist/reconstructionist distinction, which is nearly a Platteral 
shift. You're allegedly responding to a post in which I said quite a lot and 
yet so little of what I said fiqures into your response. This tendancy to 
sniff around for bad metaphysics all the time only has the effect of being 
pretty darn rude, dude. Its dismissive and condescending. It has a way of 
shirting around and otherwise avoiding the substance or content of my 
remarks, like you really don't what to hear it. You then conclude with this 
incomprehensible request to say something or another to prove some kind of 
purity. I really, really don't get that. Seriously. What is the point and 
purpose of being so picky that you'll effectively ignore the content and 
take issue with particular words and images that smell like bad metaphyics 
no matter how they're being employed. That's a real question. What do you 
think you're doing. What problem does this solve?

dmb

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