[MD] Ironistic Metaphysics

Fri Aug 7 12:26:58 PDT 2009

Steve said:
What we would need to adopt any of these systems and what no one has ever invented is a method that stands outside of metaphysics that tells us how to choose between such systems. I think the recognition of the shortcomings of the project of creating a metaphysical system is what Rorty means by ironism. To be ironist about a metaphysical system is to use it for whatever purposes it is useful for without thinking of it as closer to the one true account of the way things really are than any other since the ironist when it comes to metaphysics doesn't think of metaphysics as the project of getting past some Kantian barrier between language and reality as it really is--that we can get more or less in touch with reality by coming up with the right sentences to describe reality and holding them to be true.   So my question about whether Pirsig is an ironist is concerned with whether Pirsig sees the MOQ getting us in touch with reality as it really is...Or something like that. I'm still hoping that Matt or someone will jump in and tell me what it is I want to ask.

dmb says:

Okay, thanks. Here I can see a similarity with what Pirsig is saying but there also seems to be a very importance difference. Both of them would deny that they have crossed that Kantian barrier and both of them would deny that our sentences correspond to reality as it really is. In other words, they are both rejecting the notion of a single objective truth or the correspondence theory of truth. Although this description doesn't use the terms "subjective" or "objective", we can still see that this would be Rorty's way of rejecting SOM. I strongly suspect that this is the sort of thing Paul Turner had in mind when he said that Rorty's view of things is about 90% the same as Pirsig's view. But I want to talk about where that remaining 10% resides.

It seems to me that the ironist has to be ironic because he denies that the Kantian barrier could ever be crossed but the MOQ's attack on SOM has a way of getting unstuck. It says the Kantian barrier is a product of the underlying metaphysical assumptions, not a schism in nature of things as they really are. Further, the MOQ says there are no "things" as they really are, no Kantian things-in-themselves. I mean, I think Pirsig DOES see the MOQ as a way of getting us in touch with reality as it really is but, because of the concept of pure experience, the primary empirical reality is not composed of "things" or any other kind of objective, pre-existing reality. In the MOQ, experience is reality and so there is no such barrier to cross in the first place. 
I mean, I'm not so sure that Rorty denies the barrier itself so much as he denies our ability to ever cross it. In that sense, the ironist is one who has resigned themselves to the fact that this will always be an unbridgeable gap while the MOQer says subjects and objects are concepts derived from something more fundamental and that in experience there is no such gap.
But I still like to know what it means to have a "final vocabulary" or a "metavocabulary". I always understood the word to mean the total body of words either in the language as a whole or the total body of words knows to a particular user. It seems pretty clear that Rorty's terms refer to subsets within the total body (final) and to something beyond that total body of words (meta). This doesn't make sense in such a way that there must be some big idea missing that would make sense of it. It might seem like a flippant question, but in what sense can a person have more than one vocabulary? Is he talking about the various kinds of jargon used in various fields or is he talking about the examination of metaphysical assumptions as such? The use of such terms really needs some context, you know? Where is Rorty coming from with these terms and what's he trying to do with them?

Thanks,
dmb 

> On Aug 6, 2009, at 11:09 PM, david buchanan wrote:
> 
> >
> > Hey Steve and y'all:
> > I remember being perplexed by this sort of talk when Matt used to talk  
> > like that. What I still don't quite understand is what Rorty means by  
> > "final vocabulary" or "choice between vocabularies". What is a  
> > metavocabulary and how can one be neutral or universal? I mean, this  
> > definition of an "ironist" depends entirely on the meaning of such  
> > terms but no explanations or definitions of them are supplied.
> >
> > Matt? Steve? Can you tell me what this talk about "vocabulary" means?
> >
> > Without that, he just seems to be saying that an "ironist" is a person  
> > who is uncertain of her own beliefs and that this uncertainty is a  
> > very sophisticated sort of doubt. It's like he's trying to make it  
> > sound cool. When such irony is compared to the certainty of fanatics  
> > and ideologues, I suppose it is pretty cool. Is he just saying that an  
> > ironist is like Socrates; she's the wisest of them all because she  
> > knows that she doesn't know anything?
> >
> >
> > But I also suppose (and hope) Rorty is saying something more  
> > interesting than that. Otherwise, why use the fancy jargon? Otherwise,  
> > why provide a definition that needs a whole series of other  
> > definitions? I would hope his point his worth the work it takes to get  
> > that point. I hope he's not just repeated that Socratic idea of  
> > wisdom, cause there sure are easier and more elegant ways to say that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
> >> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 18:11:58 -0400
> >> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> >> Subject: [MD]  Ironistic Metaphysics
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> What is metaphysics? Does everyone have a metaphysics? Or can people
> >> get by without being metaphysicians?
> >>
> >> Rorty:
> >> "I shall define an "ironist" as someone who fulfills three
> >> conditions: (1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final
> >> vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by
> >> other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books
> >> she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her
> >> present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
> >> (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not
> >> think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it
> >> is in touch with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to
> >> philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither
> >> within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to
> >> fight one's way past appearances to the real, but simply by playing
> >> the new off against the old."
> >>
> >> Is Pirsig an ironist?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Steve
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