[MD] Ironistic Metaphysics

[Steve Peterson]

> Hi DMB,


> dmb said:
> Yea, maybe that's what it means to be ironic about metaphysics. The  
> ironist holds a metaphysical view that says there is no way to  
> choose a metaphysical view.
>
> Steve replied:
> I don't understand the claims that metaphysics is unavoidable. Why  
> must we call "not seeing a way to privilege one metaphysical system  
> above all other possible views" itself a metaphysical view? Why not  
> call this a post-metaphysical perspective?
>
> dmb says:
> I wonder who you're quoting there.

Steve:
It's not a quote of anything, I was just trying to group that  
statement as a single thing.

DMB:
> And isn't it true that the ability to privilege one metaphysical  
> system above all others would require what you were calling a meta- 
> metaphysics or something? And isn't it true that Rorty's  
> description of an ironist depends on a key phrase (final  
> vocabulary) that still hasn't been explained? I mean, this whole  
> debate is pretty damn sketchy if you ask me. No offense, Steve, but  
> it seems that nobody is quite sure what we're even talking about  
> here and our resident Rorty fan has apparently decided not to offer  
> much help.

Steve:
I've been to trying to describe the issue to avoid needing to talk  
about specialized terms like "final vocabulary." I guess I'm not  
doing a very good job.

As for "meta-metaphysics," that was someone else's suggestion. I've  
just been arguing that we don't have to work within a metaphysical  
system but rather choose among them like paintings in a gallery  
without thinking of any of them as the true painting or as a bunch of  
different attempts at trying to be the true painting. They can all be  
used for whatever they may be useful for.


DMB:
> As I understand it, Rorty uses the term "metaphysics" quite  
> differently than Pirsig does. For Pirsig, it just means one's  
> worldview.

Steve:
I agree that Pirsig often seems to use metaphysics that way, and if  
that is what we always mean by metaphysics, it is indeed impossible  
to argue about having one. But then we can still ask, do we need to  
model our thinking about knowledge on vision at all? Do we have to  
think of ourselves as wearing cultural glasses that come between a  
mental eye and its object and prevent us from knowing the world as it  
really is?

Pirsig "The culture in which we live hands us a set of intellectual  
glasses to interpret experience with, and the concept of the primacy  
of subjects and objects is built right into these glasses.  If  
someone sees things through a somewhat different set of glasses or,  
God help him, takes his glasses off, the natural tendency of those  
who still have their glasses on is to regard his statements as  
somewhat weird, if not actually crazy. But he isn't.  The idea that  
values create objects gets less and less weird as you get used to  
it.  Modern physics on the other hand gets more and more weird as you  
get into it and indications are that this weirdness will increase.   
In either case, however, weirdness isn't the test of truth.  As  
Einstein said, common sense-non-weirdness-is just a bundle of  
prejudices acquired before the age of eighteen."

Steve:
Okay, so Pirsig likes the ocular metaphor and imagines the  
possibility of being able to take off the glasses all together and  
see the real thing, so he doesn't sound like an ironist in that  
quote. But I'm very attracted to the paintings in a gallery bit:

RMP:
".. if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then
it becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist.  Then one
doesn't seek the absolute "Truth."  One seeks instead the highest  
quality
intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge that if the  
past is
any guide to the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as
useful until something better comes along."

Steve interjects:
If he expects something better to come along, then he sounds to me  
like an ironist about his own creation.

RMP continues:
"One can then examine
intellectual realities the same way he examines paintings in an art
gallery, not with an effort to find out which one is the "real"  
painting,
but simply to enjoy and keep those that are of value.  There are many  
sets
of intellectual reality 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.
Or, using another analogy, saying that a Metaphysics of Quality is false
and a subject-object metaphysics is true is like saying that rectangular
coordinates are true and polar coordinates are false.  A map with the  
North
Pole at the center is confusing at first, but it's every bit as  
correct as
a Mercator map.  In the Arctic it's the only map to have.  Both are  
simply
intellectual patterns for interpreting reality and one can only say  
that in
some circumstances rectangular coordinates provide a better, simpler
interpretation."

Steve:
He is not willing to say that any particular metaphysics is true,  
then he sounds like an ironist to me.

Best,
Steve