[MD] FW: Essay on James

[David M]

dmb says:
These would be the accusations of William James. He accuses idealism of 
adding stuff by treating abstractions as if they were ontological realities 
rather than tools. I think Pirsig makes it pretty clear that this is why he 
rejects the comparison with Hegel (made by those deep thinkers over at 
Psychology Today) and accepts the comparison to James's radical empiricism 
instead.

DM: That's great, of course, Dewey founds Hegel (in part) very useful. I 
just find this too black and white. I'd suggest that a more rounded approach
would see that Hegel is alot closer to James and Dewey than say Plato and 
Kant.

dmb continued:
“Throughout the history of philosophy the subject and its object have been 
treated as absolutely discontinuous entities” and this gap “has assumed a 
paradoxical character which all sorts of theories had to be invented to 
overcome” (PCAP 184).

DM: Of course, like Pirsig, Hegel describes how the SO approach arises abnd 
can be overcome, I don't think Pirsig says
SOM never happened or in fact that it was a pointless exerecise in cutting 
up (describing) reality one way.

DMB:Here he complains that the empiricists have been ignoring certain 
experiences in their constructions, namely the continuity of experience. His 
other rivals, the idealists, are guilty of trying to plug this gap by giving 
reality to abstractions that are aren’t found in experience.

DM: Of course Hegel is more famous for trying to make experience fit a 
certain dialectical narrative

dmb replies to these replies:
I suppose Hegel's Absolute (and similar Gods) would be the quintessential 
example of a fictional metaphysical addition. Also, please notice the 
quotation marks. The problems with idealism identified here are the problems 
that concern James. (The "Quintessence" is the fifth element, that unknown 
metaphysical reality that lies behind the four physical elements.)

DM: WHat I think, is that whenever the absolute or the transcendent is used 
as concepts by phiolsophers they are often talking about what Pirsig
would call DQ, and if you look at it like this, you can get something out of 
reading idealists, etc. I would also suggest that unlike Pirsig, and like 
Ham,
they often think they can tell us all about the structure/content/powers of 
the transcendent and absolute. This is a mistake and over reach. We can say 
what
DQ makes manifest, SQ/values/experience/qualities, but after that DQ is 
without form, it is the intense potential that is left when all SQ is put 
aside for Tao.

dmb says:
Radical Empiricism doesn't deny the power of imagination, the usefulness of 
abstractions or the formulation of scientific theories. But until your 
colorful elephant lands and gets out of that UFO, we're not allowed to 
include it in our philosophical accounts.

DM: Well scientists and even people waiting for a bus have to rely on what 
they think is actualbut not available to experience in the present. I think 
radical
empiricism needs to include these aspects of dealing with experience-reality 
if we are to call it a pragmatism.

DMB: And its a good thing too. Einstein's mathematical efforts were 
checkable by mathematicians but most scientists also saw that the theory had 
to be tested by an actual experiment. As you know, one was finally devised 
and Einstein's theory was put to the test. But how does one test for the 
existence of an Absolute Spirit?

DM: Agreed, but what is the test for DQ? I have an answer, what's yours?

DMB: Plato's Forms? Orange elephants with green spots or the space ship that 
carries it? Western Philosophy is apparently full of such untestible 
nonsense. And it looks like these fictions are almost always abstractions 
from life which are then given as the cause of that life from which it was 
abstracted....

DM: Yes and no. Yes we need to keep ourselves as close to what we are able 
to experience as possible. But we do need to deal with the
non-experienced. Otherwise why would we think there should be biscuits in 
the biscuit box. And there is something non-linguistic about
whether there are or not (to pick a fight with Matt).

DM said:
Sure you threw your rattle out of your cot when I suggested that 
possibilties are real a couple of months ago. But hey, you are getting 
there.

dmb says:
Getting there? Hardly. I think your notion of possibilities as real is just 
one more case of treating abstractions as real entities. I think it confuses 
ordinary anticipation and hope with metaphysical realities.

DM: I think this is deep rooted SOM in your thinking. Because possibilities 
are not material they are not real for you. Take the double slit experiment.
Electrons fired through one slit give no interference pattern. Two slits and 
one electron and you get an interference pattern. Physicists consider
the extra real possibilities in the second case as changing what happens, 
they put them into their calculations, how real do you want?
Do you leave your car unlocked with the keys in it or do you worry about the 
possibility that it might get taken? Possibilities are the
openness that makes DQ real, without possibilties we do not have 
relationships we have substances and essentialism and SOM.