[MD] Intellectual activity

[david buchanan]

Platt and Arlo:

"Taken by itself that seems obvious enough. But what's not so obvious is 
that, given a value-centered Metaphysics of Quality, it is absolutely, 
scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the patient. This is not just an 
arbitrary social convention that should apply to some doctors but not to all 
doctors, or to some cultures but not all cultures. It's true for all people 
at all times, now and forever, a moral pattern of reality as real as H20." 
(Lila, 13)

"The extreme cultural relativists thus maintain that 'truth' is inherently 
basically what any culture can come to agree on, and thus no 'truth' is 
inherently better than another other. ...Foucault maintained in essence, 
that what humans come to call 'truth' is simply an arbitrary play of power 
and
convention, and he outlined several epochs where the 'truth' seemed to 
depend entirely on shifting and conventional epistemes, or discursive 
formation governed not by 'truth' but by exclusionary transformation 
principles. All truth, in other words , was ultimately arbitrary. The 
argument seemed quite persuasive, and even caused a bit of an international 
sensation. Until his brighter critics simply asked him:"'You say all truth 
is arbitrary. In your presentation itself true? Foucalt, like all 
relativists, had exempted himself from the very criteria he aggressively 
applied to others. He was making a series of truth claims that denied all 
truth claims (except his own privileged stance) and thus his position, as 
critics from Habermas to Taylor pointed out , was profoundly incoherent." 
(Ken Wilber, "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality," p. 29)

Platt said:
When Arlo claims "never absolutely true" he merely repeats the relativist 
doctrine of humanities professors which Wilber demonstrates is "profoundly 
incoherent." Even Pirsig has fallen under the influence of 
culturally-derived truth by stating, "There are many sets of intellectual 
reality(read "truth") in existence, and we can perceive some to have more 
quality than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our 
history and current patterns of values." ...Pirsig saves himself by hedging 
his statement with "in part," meaning some truths can be considered 
"absolute" -- like H20. Lest it be forgotten, the statement "There are no 
absolutes" is profoundly incoherent.

dmb says:
Hedging? That's not how I see it at all. Sometimes Pirsig talks like "there 
are no absolutes" and sometimes he talks like he's not a relativist. Its not 
because he's hedging. Its not because he's fickle or confused. Its just 
becasue the MOQ is neither absolutist nor relativistic. That choice is part 
of the SOM nightmare. It basically pits social level religious types against 
the modern world view.

I think Wilber and Pirsig both accept the basic insights of postmodernity, 
that culture and language profoundly shape our perceptions. This is what 
Pirsig was refering to with the sand sorting analogy where he points out 
that the sorter has to be taken into account. Pirsig and Wilber offer a way 
to rank things and otherwise refuse to accept the idea that these 
perceptions are arbitrarty. They both offer an evolutionary structure that 
prevets them from being "extreme" relativists, but that certainly doesn't 
mean they are claiming any absolutist alternatives. And that's the context 
in which Pirisg uses the word "absolutely". I think he's just being emphatic 
here and this word is preceded by the clause, "given a value-centered 
metaphysics of quality". I think you're blowing the use of this term way out 
of proportion. But it surely seems that it'll be true as long as there are 
patients and doctors and germs. I think its more like Pirsig is saying that 
its absolutely obvious that we should choose to save a person over the germs 
- every time and in every language. I think he's saying that some things are 
not true merely by convention  - and yet this analogy is true from our 
perspective rather than the germ's. Doctors must seem like monsters to them. 
And some day there may be no more germs or patients or doctors and our sun 
will burn out, life in this part of the galaxie will disappear forever and 
property values will take a huge dive too.

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