[MD] Language, SOM, and the MoQ

[Matt Kundert]

DMB said:
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"?

Matt:
I'm not sure what you don't understand.  A pragmatist pretends to be a 
skeptic when he encounters a SOMist to show the SOMist how his attempts to 
establish whatever it is he's trying to establish will fail because he can't 
make the skeptic shut up.  I'm not sure what you don't get.  To deconstruct 
something you use the other person's terms to show how they lead to 
futility.  And then after you're done doing that, you can construct your own 
box, one that isn't SOMic.

DMB said:
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 just saying a rejection of objectivity or the 
appearance reality distinction doesn't necessarily mean rejecting the basic 
assumptions of SOM.

Matt:
I think that's a poor way of describing my position.  In my experience, the 
only people who describe pragmatism that way are people still caught with 
residue SOM on their fingers.

When one rejects the objective/subjective parity, it dissolves into a 
continuum of intersubjectivity.  I'm not exactly sure what you do that 
doesn't do that.

DMB said:
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.

Matt:
That's kinda' right.  I did dismiss the skeptical/idealist distinction as 
you were using it and replaced it with a de-/re- distinction.  But I don't 
see what's so wrong with that.  I certainly didn't think I was begin 
underhanded, I thought I was being fairly straightforward.  I thought the 
distinction you were using was misleading and bad.  I didn't think it 
captured the situation very well.  So I replaced it with something that I 
thought played better to some of things you were saying on behalf of the 
distinction.  Some of the stuff you say sounds almost right, but then some 
of it not so much.  I read your post, and it seemed to me that I understood 
the gist of your message (I'm always negative and destructive and never 
positive and constructive), but that there was a better way of putting the 
point that wasn't misleading, like saying that I reject metaphysics, when by 
_your_ definition I don't.

Certainly there was other stuff going on in your post, but I think we need 
to distinguish mysticism from reconstructive efforts.  Its conflating the 
two that I think starts to muddy the area.

And yes, I am a one trick pony more or less.  I thought that's what I was 
saying in my post.  Question is, why is that wrong?  Why can't somebody do 
one thing and not have to do another?  Again, as I said before, you're the 
one that talks to me.  I don't hound you or anyone else all around the face 
of the MD with my questions.  I pick my spots and say things when I feel 
like it, when I think it might have a good effect.

And I don't reject "the sublime, the ineffable, the mystical."  That's where 
you just don't get it.  I just don't have a lot to say about it.

Oh, and don't you remember several people asking you to go back and talk 
about mysticism again?  Why are you still at me anyways?  I mean, they 
actually want to listen to you.  You might try talking to them.

At any rate, though, I have to apologize for "being all over the place."  I 
mean, I didn't think I was all over the place in my last post.  I thought I 
used my space pretty well to cover as many issues as I could without being 
too pedantic, which I get accused of a lot.  But if I am being sloppy and 
sounding a little lackluster, as I am here, just chalk it up to the boredom.

You can declare victory now if you'd like to (and you gotta' admit, my 
willingless to declare a loss has got to be better than Bo's quickness to 
declare victory at the drop of a hat).  But please, don't keep this up 
unless you finally understand what I mean by "I don't reject metaphysics in 
the sense of 'paradigm for thought.'"  Until you're ready to distinguish 
between two senses of metaphysics, and are willing to say that I don't 
reject metaphysics in the sense that people are supposed to be using it 
around here, then there's really no point in moving forward with anything 
else.  There's just too much misleading static for any meaningful 
communication to happen.

Matt

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