[MD] suspended in language

Sun Nov 8 12:58:49 PST 2009

Matt, you're giving me fits of giggles.  Yes, no and all of the above...
Ontological indeterminism is creativity to the infinite degree.  Yes, that's
how it seems.  It's the joy of the ride.  Relativism, relativism,
relativism, relativism, relativism, relativism, relativism, relativism,
relativism, relativism, relativism...  And I love Mr. Pirsig, and
Protagoras, and you, and even grumpy old Ron...  Now put that into your
pitch pipe and play it.  

Marsha        

p.s.  I'm not ready to have a serious discussion concerning relativism.    

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Matt Kundert
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 3:05 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] suspended in language

Marsha said:
You seem to think the use of the word 'relativism' for 
rhetorical reasons should be dropped. I am not concerned 
so much with its rhetorical use, but with the implications 
of an epistemological relativism, ontological relativism and 
by extension ontological indeterminism. Most Indian 
religions, the Sophists, Bernard Crick, Paul Feyerabend, 
Thomas Kuhn, George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Robert 
Nozick, Joseph Margolis, Richard Rorty, Isaiah Berlin and 
Ugo Zilioli, to name a few, are advocates of relativism. It 
seems to me relativism is a word still full of life and that 
puts me in good company.

Matt:
The series of sentences with presumed inferential 
connections above are exactly what makes this a very 
silly conversation between Steve, you, and I.  You say 
you are not "concerned so much with [relativism's] 
rhetorical use," which is why I keep talking about 
something like a "conceptual area" that you want to 
name differently than Steve or I.  But then you piss all 
over the names Steve or I would rather call the 
conceptual area the two of us _would like_ to agree 
with you in thinking is the way to go.  But you don't piss 
on them because of a _naming strategy_--you declare 
you aren't interested in strategy.  You piss on them as i
ntransigent anti-relativisms.  You keep taking us to be 
_disagreeing_ with you on the conceptual area, when 
only someone who was taking _very seriously indeed_ 
the rhetorical conditions of naming would get upset 
when an area goes from one name ("relativism") to 
another ("relationalism").  That's how it appears from 
my limited perspective.  

You keep quoting text from Pirsig as evidence of 
relativism, and we go, "yeah, but we take that as 
evidence of relationalism."  The only reason to be upset 
about the switch in names is if one is concerned with 
rhetorical usage.  Steve and I have deployed our reasons 
self-consciously as concerns about rhetorical usage, and 
the only thing I think we're wondering is how someone 
who wants to take up the mantle of the Sophists, whose 
spirit says that it is all rhetoric, cannot recognize that the 
demand for a particular name is the first rhetorical 
procedure to be taken in any dialogue.

I could give a shit anymore whether you call it relativism, 
relationalism, indeterminism, nihilism, irrationalism, 
rhetoricalism, Sophism, pragmatism, pantheism, 
skepticism, or any of the other thousands of names that 
could be made up or have at one time or another been 
used to point at the conceptual area in question.  All I 
wanted to do is offer my own limited, 
relative-to-my-perspective opinion on what you might 
want to name the conceptual area.  I would have thought 
someone self-conscious about relative-perspectives would 
have understood the dynamics involved in people 
_actually having different perspectives_.

Why do I think there's a block?  Oh, I don't know, maybe 
because you list off a whole pile of supposed relativists 
that apparently count as evidence for your feeling that 
"relativism is a word still full of life," when I know for a 
fact that the two biggest names on your list (Thomas 
Kuhn and Richard Rorty) spent most of their careers 
_denying the label of relativist_.  Your trick, to take them 
as good company, is the eminently rhetorical trick of 
naming, the kind of rhetorical usage you apparently 
otherwise deny being concerned with.

I kept trying to imply that your perspective was that you 
wanted to self-consciously "take back the name," thus 
allowing you your relative perspective and the reasons 
for your strategies.  But apparently there wasn't anything 
dynamic or relative at all about what you were doing: 
just the dogmatic, unself-conscious static application of a 
label.

Good luck with your exploration, really.  But if you don't 
limber up, and start being linguistically flexible, you're in 
for as about a bumpy ride as Bo, as when he declares 
Pirsig the most innovative philosopher in history because, 
at root, no one until him had used the phrase "the 
Metaphysics of Quality."

That's not a good way of reading other philosophers, or 
making sense of their relative positions.

Matt

> From: valkyr at att.net
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 03:38:27 -0500
> Subject: Re: [MD] suspended in language
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I _hold_ no hostility towards you.  
> 
> You seem to think the use of the word 'relativism' for rhetorical reasons
> should be dropped. I am not concerned so much with its rhetorical use, but
> with the implications of an epistemological relativism, ontological
> relativism and by extension ontological indeterminism. Most Indian
> religions, the Sophists, Bernard Crick, Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn,
George
> Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Robert Nozick, Joseph Margolis, Richard Rorty,
Isaiah
> Berlin and Ugo Zilioli, to name a few, are advocates of relativism. It
seems
> to me relativism is a word still full of life and that puts me in good
> company.  
> 
> I offered two quotes (see below) that seem to indicate that the MoQ is
> relativistic.  In the first, RMP rejects 'ethical relativism' exclusively,
> but not any other type.  I'm sure RMP understood Protagoras' cognative
> relativism because it is clearly explored in the Plato dialogues.  The
> second quote points to a relativity within the MoQ based on history
(memory)
> and the dynamic moment.  
> 
> -------------  
> 
> "Then Phædrus feels a tugging to read the passage again, and he does so
and
> then -- what's this?! -- ``That which we translate `virtue ' but is in
Greek
> `excellence.''' 
> Lightning hits! 
> Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not
> ethical relativism. Not pristine '`virtue.'' But areté. Excellence.
Dharma!
> Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind
and
> matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first
> teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they
had
> chosen was that of rhetoric. He has been doing it right all along."
>    (RMP,ZMM,Chapter 29)
> 
>  
> "The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of
quality
> is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are
> different for everyone because each person has a different static pattern
of
> life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence
his
> final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among individual
value
> judgments but not complete uniformity."    
>    (RMP, SODV)
> 
> 
> 
> Marsha

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