[MD] David Hildebrand's Dewey

[david buchanan]

Ian said:This is exactly what Pirsig is saying when he says that value / quality "must remain undefined" ? Pragmatically, these values cannot be pre-judged, prior to the hindsight of the evolutionary process. Our framework / world-view must not be (MoQ is not) prejudicial to that process.

dmb says:
Huh?
I think Dewey had to be vague when talking in generalities simply because specifics can only be used when talking about particular situations and particular purposes. DQ, on the hand, must remain undefined because definitions are static and intellectual while DQ is pre-intellectual. If there is a parallel to this in Dewey, it would be something like the initial phase in any given situation. In James it would be parallel to what he called "pure experience". In all three cases we're talking about a pre-conceptual awareness. You "know" it in the sense that it is experienced but it's not yet interpreted in terms of words and concepts. This is what prevents radical empiricists from adopting the notion that all experience is a linguistic affair and so marks one of the important distinctions between them and the neo-pragmatists. 




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