[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Matt Kundert]

Scott,

Scott said:
Of course, I am deliberately pressing a pragmatic button here (I am 
affirming an appearance/reality distinction, which I think goes with the 
mystic territory). The thing that seems to be missing from this discussion 
about pragmatism, physicalism, and mysticism is what mystics (at least the 
ones I pay attention to) are saying. They deny physicalism. They accept the 
supernatural (where the "natural" is the sense-perceptible, what has 
microstructural explanations). They say that the natural is a manifestation 
of the supernatural, and so on. In sum, I trust these mystics (because I 
find what they say that I can understand to be rational), therefore I am not 
a physicalist. You are a physicalist, therefore you must reject what these 
mystics say.

Matt:
I'm not sure it is physicalism, understood as I've followed Rorty in 
defining it, that opposes what you suggest the mystics are saying.  I think 
it is still the appearance/reality distinction that would divide us.  
Because if you accept the usefulness of physics, biology, etc. in dealing 
with the "natural," then you've accepted all there is to physicalism so 
defined.  Any differences you may have in the functioning of physics or 
biology or evolution is either a scientific difference, one that can be 
resolved by the activities of science, or a philosophical difference which 
is the gloss we place on them.  The only philosophical difference I can see 
is the desire to say that the supernatural _really is_ the reality behind 
the natural.  But that conflict, between the use of the appearance/reality 
distinction or not, doesn't touch whether or not I would reject mysticism 
_unless_ mysticism is essentially based on the appearance/reality 
distinction.  I'm inclined to say, with DMB, that mysticism is not drained 
once we reject that distinction.  Whatever "the natural is a manifestation 
of the supernatural" means after rejecting the appearance/reality 
distinction can be discussed, and that would be the part of mysticism we 
keep.  It would have to do with what that suggestion means, something like 
what static patterns come out of Dynamic Quality will come to mean.

So the way I would array the conflict you set up is that, between 
essentialistic physicalism and essentialistic mysticism, to affirm one 
_would_ be to deny the other.  And there would be no way to argumentatively 
adjudicate between them (if for no other reason then we haven't found a 
non-question-begging way to yet).  However, the conflict between pragmatism 
and essentialism (of which both the physicalism and mysticism from above are 
a subsection of) takes place at a higher level of abstraction, a place 
further back in our confict-enabling assumptions.  A pragmatist's 
physicalism can't come in conflict with an essentialist's mysticism because 
the physicalism in question (along with the pragmatist's mysticism) has been 
redescribed along different lines.  Once the pragmatist drops the 
essentialist assertion, his non-essentialist assertion can't be described as 
in conflict with an essentialist one because the entire conflict between 
essentialist assertions is made possible by their _common essentialism_.  
"It is all really X."  "No, it is all really Y."  They're arguing about what 
it all _really_ is.  But antiessentialists aren't arguing about what it all 
_really_ is.  They are just arguing what is the most efficacious thing for 
us to say for specific purposes.  So if you want to argue that physics 
doesn't predict the movements of rocks very well, you would be arguing with 
the pragmatist, but not the pragmatist-cum-pragmatist, but the 
pragmatist-cum-physicist.  You'd be arguing with a physicist about how 
useful physics is.  And I don't think you want to do that (insofar as you 
are not a physicist; if you are, you could, but it still wouldn't be on 
essentialistic mysticism grounds).

So you may criticize Pirsig's take on mysticism, that you don't think he 
handles the relationship between static patterns and DQ very well, but I 
think that criticism may have a lot to do with the fact that Pirsig is 
attempting to offer a non-appearance/reality distinction enabled mysticism.  
Pirsig is trying to "naturalize" mysticism, as DMB has said, where 
"naturalization" simply means "antiessentialism".  And you offer 
essentialist criticisms of how Pirsig's drained a lot of the power from 
mysticism because of his antiessentialism.  These may be appropriate, but 
its not because Pirsig is a physicalist (as he is on my reading) or because 
I'm a physicalist.  It is because both Pirsig and I are antiessentialists.

Alright, given my above picture of how I see things being layed out, I would 
counter you divisions of the playing field (from another post) with this 
one:

Matt K, Ian, Arlo, DMB: antiessentialist, physicalist

Platt, Ham, Scott:  essentialist, nonphysicalist

While I know you take on many of pragmatism's attacks on traditional 
philosophy, I still can't square your use of the appearance/reality 
distinction.  And it seems the only major philosophical thing that divides 
us.  But even if it is, then I wouldn't even be sure about calling you a 
nonphysicalist unless you're prepared to say that physics doesn't help with 
our way of life.  And this last reason is why I thrust DMB, against his 
current protestations, into camp as a physicalist.  I haven't seen any 
reason not to consider him one based on his commitment to antiessentialism 
and his desire to say that "I would also object to the notion that mystics 
accept the supernatural, unless by 'supernatural' you mean 'extremely 
natural'."  In my book, the only people who could be committed to 
nonphysicalism here are essentialists because _nobody_ who was attracted to 
Pirsig would be a scientific materialist (an essentialistic physicalist).  
The only people left are quasi-idealists who want to assert something as 
_more real_ than something else.  Even with DMB's desire to say that Pirsig 
gives us super-strength idealism, I don't think he or Pirsig is a 
quasi-idealist in this sense because they most assuredly should not be 
saying one thing is more than real than something else.  Any "reductions" 
made, either by use of physical explanations or Quality explanations (the 
kind implied when DMB said Pirsig "'reduced' all of reality to different 
kinds of quality"), are not _reductions_ down to the primal substance of the 
way the World Really Is.  They are suggestions about how we talk for 
particular purposes.

Matt

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