[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Matt Kundert]

David,

David said:
I agree with DMB that we do need this distinction in the MOQ, it being 
pragmatic and realist rather than pragmatic and irrealist like Matt, Rorty, 
etc.

Matt:
Well, I'm just not sure what the distinction is supposed to amount to, what 
its supposed to do.  If it looks like Kant, I don't see why we need it.  I 
gave another roll of the dice and it looked the same as what I was saying.  
I think the same thing of what DMB replied.  The basic response I've seen in 
the past (which is the same thing Carnap did when pressured about his 
positivism) is a pragmatic one: hey, its what works from experience.  You 
can't say its adequate to experience, because that's correspondence.  So you 
say it works.  But once you say that, I think a lot of the utility of the 
distinction disappears for philosophical work.

David said
Hey Matt, you did not answer my question about whether there is a 
non-linguistic aspect to the taste of an apple?

Matt:
Well, I thought I'd answered that question enough for you (being as you ask 
it every month or two).  Yes, of course there is.

And why don't you ask DMB that question?  He's the one that said that 
Pirsig's an industrial strength idealist, which unglossed doesn't bode well 
for the non-linguistic.

Matt

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