[MD] What is radical empiricism?

[David M]

Hi DMB

Thanks for reminding us of this bit of Lila.

Perhaps we can explore how pragmatism and values relate?

I think there is more to values and experience than pragmatism,
because I think that sometimes pragmatism in certain hands sounds
like man is the measure of all things, that pragmatic values=what value to 
human
benefit. But I think that some experiences of value are less egocentric,
that we can experience, what shall we call it, love, a loving non-grasping 
recognition
of what we experience. Involving a breakdown of any self-other 
disctinctions.

Ta
David M


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 8:27 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] What is radical empiricism?


> David M said:
> I think the label is as good as any. But I'd like to explore what we mean 
> by
> 'radical'. I am assuming that it is radical because it is 
> somethingdifferent
> from a more SOM based sort of empiricism.
>
> Ian said:
> I'm no fan of labels like "radical empiricism", but I have no problem with
> that working understanding of the term in relation to MoQ. ...I'm cool 
> with
> radical empiricism.
>
> Gav said:
> ...radical empiricism is taking immediate experience as the only 
> certainty.
> ...in the MOQ the same position is seen in the DQ/sq relation. DQ is
> absolute (truly radically empirical); sq is abstracted from DQ; sq is what
> we call 'the world' - every*thing*. ...everything is abstracted from
> immediate experience(DQ), including us.
>
> dmb quotes from Lila, end of chapter 29:
> "The second of James's two main systems of philosophy, which he said was
> independent of pragmatism, was his RADICAL EMPIRICISM. By this he meant 
> that
> subjects and objects are not the starting point of experience. Subjects 
> and
> objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more
> fundamental which he described as 'the immediate flux of life which
> furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual
> categories'. In this basic flux of experience, the distinctions of
> reflective thought, such as those between consciousness and content, 
> subject
> and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we 
> make
> them. Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it
> logically precedes this distinction.
> In his last unfinished work, SOME PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY, James had
> condensed this descripton to a single sentence. 'There must always be a
> discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static 
> and
> discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing'. Here James had
> chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision 
> of
> the MOQ.
> What the MOQ adds to James' PRAGMATISM and his RADICAL EMPIRICISIM is the
> idea that the primal reality from which subjects and objects spring is
> VALUE. By doing so it seems to unite pragmatism and radical empiricism 
> into
> a single fabric."
>
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