[MD] subject/object: pragmatism

[Matt Kundert]

DM,

Matt said:
...the big problem with SOM is for philosophers, not lay folk.  That's the big place, I suppose, where I differ with Pirsig: I don't see SOM as a cultural problem of amazing magnitude.

DM said:
The Continental tradition after Heidegger clearly argues that SOM has vast cultural implications....

Matt:
I consider one of the most important things that Rorty taught me was the suspicious eye we should cast on philosophers who think their problems are problems for everybody.  I think Foucault did exemplary work in digging up problems regular folk contend with, but I think he was wrong in linking philosophers' problems were everybody's.  SOM doesn't have vast cultural implications, it has vast implications for the culture of philosophers.

DM said:
...why do you think word language has some kind of privilege?

Matt:
Because we use it, and it isn't so much a privilege as it is simply a way of distinguishing word-language from other languages, by e.g., limiting "language" to what humans use via words.

DM said:
I think you are begging questions about what we mean by concepts. You see it is just as easy to muddy the notion of concept and say that recognised patterns that we sense require something like concepts to be recognised. Rorty and you are not going far enough I'd suggest because you are attempting tokeep distinctions that are up for grabs.

Matt:
Yeah, we could back and forth all day about who's the one not going far enough (tag: you're it).  But I don't think you really understand what I'm suggesting--I don't really see it as _obvious_ that language is this or knowledge is that, I simply think it is _easier_ if we see language and knowledge the way I'm suggesting.  I'm pinning down the words in the constellation I have them on purpose, I'm not suggesting (like Plato) that I've found where the words _are_ pinned down.  So, yeah, I'm begging questions, so are you.  That's what happens when you pin stuff down into assumptions differently.  But without starting assumptions, you can't go anywhere.  So, sure, as nominalists it's all up for grabs, but I'm moving to stage two: grabbing them.

Matt

p.s. I've read some Dewey and I like him.  He has a lot of utility, particularly with his political focus.  For me, I guess I don't feel the need to choose between Rorty and Dewey.  Others, apparently, do.

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