[MD] Creativity and Philosophology, 2 (from 2005)

[Matt Kundert]

Oh, I'm sorry Ron.  Maybe you were taking me a little too literally.

I didn't realize I was responding directly to something you had said, and so wasn't cognizant of actively disregarding statements you had said.

In looking at the statements I accidentally disregarded, at the time I had read them they probably didn't make a big impression on me because I have to confess I didn't really follow you.

For instance, I don't really know what you mean by "objective analytic approach."  Perhaps you mean something like a method, like setting up a meatgrinder and putting everything through it no matter what it is, as opposed to just kind of improvising every situation?  Something like that?

It reminds me of Rorty's poking fun at American deconstructionism.  A large movement of mainly literary theorists in the United States through 70s and 80s began reading Jacques Derrida as wielding a method on the texts he read, and then peeled off this method they saw and began using it themselves.  Rorty, on the other hand, always understood "deconstruction" as "whatever it is that Derrida is doing," because he couldn't really see any consistent method at work or anything, just a brilliant mind writing some pretty cool shit.  Rorty said, though, that wielding a method is a pretty easy way to publish (though it does get tedious).

On the other hand, while what you mean by "objective analytic approach" resonates well with what Pirsig meant by "classic" in ZMM, I confess that I don't really recognize it in what he meant by "philosophology," though we're all free to use it as we wish I suppose.

I love the notion of an "active attitude of inquiry," though I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I have to again confess that I have no idea what you mean in the second large requoted block you wrote.  It sounds like you're trying to peel history off of inquiry, which doesn't sound right to me, but there might be a finely molded tissue of thought there that I don't understand.

And I surely can't respond to the assertion that I'm restating SOM.

Matt

> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 07:40:35 -0700
> From: xacto at rocketmail.com
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Creativity and Philosophology, 2 (from 2005)
> 
> Matt,
> Make up your mind
> 
> first you state:
> But, that still doesn't really clear up _my_ problem.  I still 
> don't really know who I'm supposed to call philosophologists, 
> even if they do just do history of philosophy.  I mean, from 
> the addition of the quote, that seems to suggest that _all_ 
> Pirsig means is "intellectual history," right?
> 
> So--why can't I say intellectual historians who philosophize 
> and philosophers who do intellectual history?  Why do I 
> need a new word?  Is it just to make fun of people?
> 
> then you get awnry:
> 
> "It appears, most other people just see it as a funny little tag 
> to put on pretentious people.
> 
> When it gets down to it, I don't really care if people want to 
> keep it for the fun it pokes at academics.  But somtimes, it 
> looks like they want to make that larger point, like Pirsig, 
> which is when I think they want to find philosophical interest 
> in it to, and so might want to dialogue about it."
> 
> but you totally disregard any comment on this statement:
> 
> "In this manner I have understood philosophilology as 
> the objective analytic approach to philosophy.
> 
> I understand philosophy as an active attitude of inquirey.
> 
> Objective analytic approach to an active attitude of inquirey
> as a cultural norm definition of philosophy is the gripe, it attracts
> the label of unoriginal thinking by Pirsig precisely because
> of this. It is also why Pirsig views alternative systems of approach
> to an active attitude of inquirey as more original.
> 
> I think Dave sees this as THE arguement Pirsig brings to bear
> on philosophy and rendering it meaningless is undercutting it."
> 
> or this one:
> 
> "I think that you have a good point although I believe it is more useful
> > > to make the distinction between an active inquirey that involves a
> > > a body of thought that includes a history which views itself as
> > > the evolutionary culmenation of active inquirey with an active inquirey
> > > that does not.
> > > This leaves objectivism free to use without rejecting it out of hand
> > > as altogether wrong or bad but merely limited and one of many
> > > ways inwhich a body of understanding may be created.
> > >
> > > MoQ places active inquirey at the fore front where objectivism
> > > tends to give it a back seat and tells it to shut up when
> > > expereince does not match it's methods and interpretations."
> 
> 
> the flogging of the horse is in that it is a restatement of the SOM
> arguement
> within the bounds of philosophy. 
> 
> 
> -Ron
> 
> 
>       
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/

_________________________________________________________________
Express your personality in color! Preview and select themes for Hotmail®. 
http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/LearnMore/personalize.aspx?ocid=PID23391::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HYGN_express:082009