[MD] suspended in language

Fri Nov 13 06:29:16 PST 2009

Matt,
The long and the short of it is, while you think niether Steve or
I were making any kind of good argument on the subject,
I feel Steve had it fairly well asessed as the SOM arguement 
it is and arguing it is rather pointless from the viewpoint
of the MoQ which takes both sides. That both relativity and
the absolute spring from dynamic quality which is both
yet niether. To say that everything is relative, is conceptual
and we have no way of knowing if it is or isn't. It is an assumption
based on experience. It is not experience, it is an understanding 
of expereince, atleast this is my understanding of how Pirsig 
addresses the situation.
If some want an "Ultimate" understanding that is impregnable
to fill the need to have to have an "ultimate" position in which
to win any philosphical arguement, then relativism sure fits that bill
but to my understanding thats not what the MoQ is about.
I think when relativism is used as a rhetorical device it
is not understood and the last resort of the self interested.
But if it used as a genuine method of exploring the meaning 
of all our values, such as Socratic method for a fine example,
then relativism is the tool of the wise, the midwife of reflective
minds the gateway to the exploration of what really does 
construct value, meaning and understanding in our experience.
-Ron

----- Original Message ----
From: X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Fri, November 13, 2009 8:51:14 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] suspended in language

Matt to Marsha:

My very general perception of what you are doing is 
based on an inference-series something like this:

1) Protagoras thought that people measured their current 
experience against their past experience.

2) Plato thought that was a bad philosophy.  He painted 
it as an epistemic and ethical sinkhole, as leading to 
global meaninglessness, as the inability for anyone to 
mean anything truly meaningful.

3) Plato, more or less, won the war of words, generating 
a PR machine for his version of what "relativism" means, 
a machine one could, generally speaking, call "most of 
the tradition of philosophy."

4) Seeing through absolutism means seeing that what 
Protagoras was saying does not lead to global 
meaninglessness.

5) By virtue of the fact that you see through absolutism 
and see _meaning_ in relativism, I take it that you've cut 
Plato's inference between Protagoras' position (called 
"relativism") and meaninglessness.

 "The first step, and all you 
really need to do to rehabilitate relativism, is cut the 
inferential-rhetorical cord between relativism and 
meaninglessness," then I'm not sure such a world would 
be the value-laden, moral-judgment ought-okay world 
that Pirsig envisioned.  Pirsig wasn't writing out his 
philosophy to just explain to others his perspective--he 
was suggesting it, commending it to others.  That's all I'm 
doing, and that's all you're doing, too--if you weren't, you 
wouldn't be a very good promoter of Pirsig or relativism.

Other than that, I think pretty much everyone in the "In 
defence of the 'relative'" thread is talking past each other 
(though your "figure of speech" response at the beginning, 
Marsha, was dead-on--I wish you'd remember that when 
I'm writing).  I personally don't think anyone is 
representing their positions very well, an experience I'm 
well acquainted with already, so I'm not about to wade 
into that shitstorm.

Ron:
First off let me say I think reading Plato as upholding a particular philosphical
position is misinterpreting his work. The dialogs I'm fairly certain, were meant
 to stimulate discussions on the matter. Protagoras, is credited for having developed
what we know as Socratic method.  That said, It's really quite an interesting
discussion in regard to what is meant by the term "relativism" One that has
bearing on the finer points of Pragmatism and MoQ.
As far as talking past each other, christ, it's what this forum does. Everyone 
has their own agenda. As John Carl would say, deal with it. But I think if we 
are all open to discussion and open to have our opinions changed, the discussion
is a fruitful one. To me this is the whole casaba, and the subject of relativism
one of the most important.

So to address the comments you made: 

 1) Protagoras thought that people measured their current 
experience against their past experience.

2) Plato thought that was a bad philosophy.  He painted 
it as an epistemic and ethical sinkhole, as leading to 
global meaninglessness, as the inability for anyone to 
mean anything truly meaningful.

Ron:
Which addresses the notion  that for concepts to have practicle meaning
they must be tested in experience.  Protagoras argues that experience is
colored by the past, which it is. The spectre of bias and prejudice the 
Pragmatists  and Pirsig contend with which aims them toward pre-intellectual
or raw experience as the arbiter of any "true" meaning. 

Meaning is constructed conceptually via relationships but the raw feels
as James would say or the dynamic Quality as Pirsig would say is not
relational for it is formless and indefinable and yet to be understood in
relational terms, The act of understanding is the act of constructing
relations the static perceptual phenomenal world we expereince is relative 
and as I was trying to explain to Marsha, DQ is only relational to our past
expereince of it which is what I feel Protagoras was emphasizing. But I think
Socrates was more concered with  the source of understanding, the pragmatic
test of  value and meaning. Bias and prejudice are what was 
the aim to be avoided   and a emphasis toward a dynamic trueness to immediate
experience was what was sought after  leading Aristotle to his theory of 
correspondance. Truth is a kind of correspondance of concepts with what "is".
But what "is" is always changing. So Protagoras has a point, all we can ever
really "Know" is the past. We can never really "know" the now with any sort
of trueness except via predictions based on past expereince and the correspondance
between the now and those predictions. So in a sense the now is constructed mostly
of the past and is always relative to form cognitive understanding.
But Socrates has a point also that the coninual stimulus our environment places apon
our awareness is always the true measure of our conceptual cognitive values.
A koan and I feel it's a mistake not to read it as one.

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