[MD] Kant's Motorcycle

[Case]

dmb says:
Wacko? He is the most widely translated philosopher in the english language.

One can get a Ph.D. from Ivy League schools on his work. There are hundreds 
in the U.S. and Canada already. I'm not saying he's above criticism or that 
his ideas are entirely mainstream but "wacko" is just not an accurate way to

characterize his work. As far as such things can be "proven", his work is 
already shown itself to be academically viable. 

[Case]
The beauty of academia is that practitioners can discuss anything they like.
One can write a thesis or a dissertation on anything one can convince
faculty members to endorse. I am not counting and don't really care but 100s
sounds high to me. In one of the interviews I listened to he was discussing
hiring people to write Integral textbooks about this and that to gain
academic acceptance. If you like him, fine. I think he is a wacko.

dmb says:
Hmmm. If we are consciousness and we are evolving, then why should 
transcendental consciousness strike you as silly? I think you might be 
objecting to the mystical modes of consciousness, but as I read it he is 
only talking about the evolution or rather development of consciousness. 
He's only saying that there are stages of development so that we transcend 
old modes of consciousness. He's only saying that the transition from 
childhood to adulthood is one of many such transitions, if you're doing it 
right anyway. And I don't think he says we're evolving TOWARD anything in 
particular. Like Pirsig, he's only saying that evolution, in general, moves 
in a direction. There is no teleology per se, but a general movement toward 
betterness gives it a direction from within, so to speak. Anyway, I don't 
think its one bit silly.

[Case]
Ok, you don't think it's silly. I confess that what I have heard sounds an
awful lot like there is some big conscious something out there sucking us
toward it. I think we are little conscious somethings and we are changing
but even Pirsig's talk of evolution being in the direction of "betterness"
strikes me as naïve. Seeing the misuse Pirsig's sloppiness on this matter
has spawned in the MoQ does not make me eager for more. 

[dmb]
P.S. I read the post in which you confess your fondness for Kantian TITs. 
Just wanted to say that I appreciate your points. They were firm and well 
supported. But the idea of TITs asks us to suppose a gap, a cleavage if you 
will, between the TITs and ourselves. You see, TITs are extremely comforting

when viewed from inside a SOM framework where they save us from solipsism. 
But this only sets up a situation where we end up having to settle for fake 
TITs and are forever cut off from the real thing, from the very TITs we 
found so warm and soft and comforting in the first place. Radical Empiricism

says there is no cleavage, there is no gap between us and TITS. There are no

TITs behind experience. Things are secondary, they are derived from 
experience. TITs don't cause experience, experience causes them, so to 
speak. TITs, by definition, are always outside of your experience. That is 
just way too sad to bare. TiTs are lovely. Men have held them as truth for 
hundreds of years. And nobody ever said Kant was a fool for holding his 
position on TITs. But Pirsig is saying that reality is entirely pervious, 
much more pervious than TITs and the cleavage that goes with them. But 
still, you had a couple of really nice points there.

[Case]
Thanks, Dave I do like TITs. I don't like solipsism. I even agree with a lot
of what you are saying but I think it applies after the fact of separation.
Without appeal to some substance, whatever it's nature, outside of ourselves
we are rather stuck with solipsism. Radical empiricism, James, Dewey and
Pirsig make very good sense on the internal construction of reality side of
things. This is how we do it and this is the result. Our understanding of
reality is our reality. But our understanding is changed and subject to
conditions that emanate from outside of ourselves and outside of our
understanding. Our sensations are sensation OF something. I don't even blame
them for just ignoring TITs after all we can only interact with and discuss
our experiences and our organization of experience. But I see no sense and
no reason to think that there are not TITs outside of my experience.