[MD] Metaphysical issues: DQ

[Krimel]

Dave,
Look, I really still am in drive-by mode. I think we just rehashed a long
standing disagreement. I see no new ground opening. So at least as far as
the metaphysics of science or science of metaphysics discussion: 

Bang! Bang! 
Rat ta ta! 
Screeeeech.......

Your account of perspectivalism reminded me of something Case said a while
back: 

Jiggle the time scale and rocks roll.
Mountains, crumble and erode
The fractal forms of valleys flow
All things cleave and shatter
Zoom in, 
Zoom out, 
Refocus.

Am I just imagining common ground here?





-----Original Message-----
From: david buchanan [mailto:dmbuchanan at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:39 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Metaphysical issues: DQ


Mel, Krimel, Ian and all:

Your riff on water and the scientist was well written and I've been enjoying
your contributions, but I think you've missed my point. Since everybody
seems to have missed the point, it must be my fault so I'll take another
crack at it. 

I'm certainly NOT saying that scientists are stupid or oblivious or anything
like that. It's not an attack on the profession, the motives of people like
Hawking. I'm not saying that science is wrong about water or that the
periodic table of elements is anything less than beautiful, amazing and
EXTREMELY useful. It's also worth pointing out that this H2O example (where
I'd said, "to physicists and chemists, water is nothing but H2O but such
assertions forget to mention that water is experienced as wet, cool,
slippery, thirst-quenching, crop-saving, cleansing, flowing, etc..) comes
from John Dewey's book, THE SUPREMACY OF METHOD, and it was used by Dr.
Sandra Rosenthal last week to illustrate the difference between scientific
objectivity and Dewey's "perspectivalism". Classical Pragmatism is
perspectivalism and Nietzsche was a perspectivalist as well. I've become
convinced that the MOQ can also rightly wear this this label.

I haven't looked for Dr. Rosenthal in cyberspace, by the way, because I'm
lucky enough to have her here in the flesh. She used to teach at Loyola
University in New Orleans but she's in her 70s now, has retired and moved to
Denver a few years ago with her husband, a retired physicist who takes
classes in the graduate program just for fun. They're friends with the
program director at my school. Anyway, she has been a guest lecturer in a
couple of my classes and is the editor of a text book assigned to students
of Pragmatism. That book is titled "CLASSICAL AMERICAN PRAGMATISM". I'm a
big fan because she thinks Richard Rorty is a relativist and, because he
dismisses Radical Empiricism, she thinks he doesn't even deserve to be
called a Pragmatist. In the world of academic Pragmatism, she's kind of a
big deal. When she lectured the other day I was scribbling notes like a
madman because everything she said was pure gold, pitch perfect. Anyway,
that should be more than enough for Ian or anyone else who wants to look
into her work.

Now I should say that my little attack on Rorty isn't just a
self-indulgence. There is a bit of a war within the world of Pragmatism and
it has everything to do with the criticism that Pirsig levels in Lila. In
fact, Rosenthal used the NAZIs to highlight the difference between
relativism and perspectivalism. Pragmatists are grateful to Rorty because he
is largely responsible for the current revival of Pragmatism but they are
also horrified by him for exactly the same reasons that Pirsig is horrified.
Both of them reject the idea of a single exclusive truth, objective truth
but Rorty thought that this meant intersubjective agreement is the best we
can do but in her lecture she pointed out, just as Pirsig did, that the
NAZIs had that kind of agreement. Rorty's brand of Pragmatism results in a
kind of cultural solipsism, with no way to judge such things. Was the end of
slavery, to use another of her examples, just a matter of shifting
consensus? Or was it really and truly a moral improvement? I think the
answer is completely obvious. The point here is simply that the rejection of
objectivity doesn't have to lead to relativism and the classical Pragmatist
reject both in favor of perspectivalism. 

Okay, now back to the main point.

The other day I was trying to explain to my 8 year-old son why it is we
can't go to the end of a rainbow to find that pot of gold. As I'm sure you
know, seeing a rainbow depends on the spatial relations. It's about where
you are in relation to the sun and the rain. And one of the best ways to
show how this relationship works would be to draw a picture of the viewer of
the rainbow with the sun behind him and the falling rain in front of him and
then maybe draws some lines showing how the light shines into the raindrops
and is reflected back into the eyes of the viewer. And so if the viewer
moves toward the rainbow he is changing the spatial relationship between
those elements so that, in effect, the rainbow moves as the viewer does. I
was lucky enough to see this in real life rather than just on paper.
Normally the movement would be almost undetectable but I was driving at
about 80 miles an hour in a big wide valley (South Park) and watched as the
rainbow "moved" through the landscape with me. I could see where the rainbow
apparently touched the ground and of course it is no coincidence that it
moved at 80 miles an hour too. I must have chased the thing for nearly an
hour. And since I'm not eight years old, I understood why it seemed to
follow me. Still, I was straight trippin'. 

You see where I'm going with this yet?

I'm not really talking about rainbows, see. I'm talking about the view from
nowhere, the god's eye view. In order to explain what a rainbow is and how
it works I have to take on an imaginary a position out in space somewhere so
that I can see the relationship between the sun, the rain and the viewer of
the rainbow. One could just as well use a movie theater to make this same
point, where you imaginatively "see" how the light from the projector shines
onto the big white screen and bounces back into the eyes of the people
watching. The capacity to imagine the total scene from outside the scene is
quite useful, of course. The problem is that this god's eye view has more or
less infected our whole way of thinking. And this characterizes scientific
objectivity. It has a way of taking us outside of the scene so that we
habitually imagine things from a position or vantage point that no one has
ever actually experienced. Its an imaginary point of view. And so the
classical pragmatists like James, Dewey, Pirsig, Rosenthal and myself want
to say, hey, wait a minute, that's a fine explanation and I don't dispute it
but let's not forget that these abstractions are just that; abstractions.
This god's eye view is so pervasive, so ingrained in our thinking, that a
whole new school of philosophy was invented to counter it. Instead of asking
about the conditions that make rainbow viewing possible, they want to simply
ask what the experience itself is like. They want to bring things back down
to the concrete realities from which these abstractions were derived in the
first place. Perspectivalism, then, wants look at experience from the
ground-up, from within the scene, rather than an imaginary position outside
reality.

And that's what the H2O example was meant to get at. The structure of the
water molecule remains the same no matter where you are, who you are, when
you are or what you are experiencing. Thus, the introduction of crop-saving,
thirst-quenching, slippery danger, etc.. The point is simply that water is
first and foremost known directly in experience itself and these experiences
are charged with an immediately felt quality with many various meanings. The
perspectivalist insists that these meaning are not less real or true than
the chemical description, that the physical properties of water are not THEE
Truth about water. Nietzsche thought we are ready for a new kind of
"objectivity", one founded as many perspectives as possible. The more eyes
the better.

And speaking of water, Mel, let's drink a few pints together sometime. You
know, the kind with barley, hops and bubbles in it. It would be nice to chat
with a MOQer. Obviously we have some common interests and I'm sure we'd have
plenty to talk about. You're in the Denver area, no?

In any case, thanks,
dmb


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