[MD] A fly in the MOQ ointment

[Ham Priday]

On 4/01/10 at 4:38 PM, David Buchanan wrote to Ham:

> Positivism, which is one of the purest forms of traditional
> empiricism is one of the most clear cut cases of subject-object
> dualism. At the beginning of chapter eight in Lila, Pirsig
> distinguishes traditional empiricism with his own.
>
> "The MOQ subscribes to what is called empiricism. It claims
> that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or
> by thinking about what the senses provide. Most empiricists
> deny the validity of any knowledge gained through imagination,
> authority, tradition, or purely theoretical reasoning. [because
> valid empirical evidence is limited to sensory experience]
> They regard fields such as art, morality, religion, and
> metaphysics as unverifiable."

I agree that empirical knowledge arises from experience.  But I think it's a 
bit simplistic to claim that empiricists deny the value of insights gained 
through intuition or theoretical reasoning. (I know Pirsig begs the question 
by using "legitimate", "validity" and "imagination" rather than "empirical", 
"value" and "intuition" in this statement, but this leaves reflective 
reasoning outside the realm of "knowledge", despite the fact that scientific 
conclusions are not possible without it.)  That art, morality, religion, and 
metaphysics are empirically "unverifiable" does not necessarily mean they 
have no value -- even for the empiricist.  If that were true, Pirsig could 
not have claimed he "subscribes to empiricism."

> "The MOQ varies from this by saying that the values of art and
> morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable, and that
> in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical reasons.
> They have been excluded because of the METAPHYSICAL
> ASSUMPTIONS that all the universe is composed of subjects
> and objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject
> or an object isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this
> assumption at all. It is just an assumption. ... If subjects and
> objects are held to be the ultimate reality then we're permitted
> only one construction of things - that which corresponds to the
 > 'objective' world - and all other constructions are unreal."

Again, Dave, this argument is a scapegoat.  Pirsig only now mentions 
"values" in reference to art, morality, and mysticism, whereas in the first 
paragraph he talks about the "validity of knowledge" relative to these
sources.  (Clever wordplay?)  Also "metaphysical assumptions" are not the 
reason religion and mysticism are excluded from [scientific] knowledge.  The 
methodology of Science adheres strictly to empirical investigation and 
confirmation.  If scientific conclusions were based on subjective judgments, 
it would not be an objective discipline.  (Most liberal arts majors don't 
appreciate the significance of objectivity in scientific research, or how 
little progress Science would have made under the influence of moralistic or 
religious authority.)

> There is a similar explanation in chapter 5:
>
> "Positivism is a philosophy that emphasizes science
> as the only source of knowledge. It sharply distinguishes
> between fact and value, and is hostile to religion and
> traditional metaphysics. ..."

Frankly, I've seen much more "hostility" to religion and metaphysics from 
the MoQists than from the logical positivists.

> One thing worth noticing about Pirsig's criticism of the
> positivists is that they were hostile to metaphysics for
> metaphysical reasons. He's talking about a certain kind
> of blindness on the part of the positivists with respect
> to their own basic assumptions. They were so busy
> asking questions about how to get our subjective ideas
> to correspond with the objective reality, they forgot to
> ask questions about those questionable questions.

Dave, if positivists are preoccupied with getting their subjective ideas to 
conform with objective reality, they are not practicing Science.

> Finally, at the end of chapter 29, Pirsig identifies his own
> empiricism with James's radical empiricism, wherein,
> "subjects and objects are not the starting points of
> experience. Subjects and objects are secondary.
> They are concepts derived from something more fundamental
> which he [James] described as 'the immediate flux of life
> which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its
> conceptual categories'. In this basic flux of experience,
> the distinctions of reflective thought, such as between
> consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and
> matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we make
> them. Pure Experience [DQ] cannot be called either physical
> or psychical: it logically precedes this distinction."

The "Pure Experience" that Pirsig refers to is one of those intellectual 
constructs that has no legitimate place in Science.  To criticize scientists 
for refusing to embrace such concepts is to deny the efficacy of the 
empiricism MoQ's author subscribes to.

> This is how subjects and objects are demoted from being
> the two basic metaphysical categories that make experience
> possible to secondary concepts which derived from a more
> primary experience.

Yet, if experience were not possible, what would be the source of our 
knowledge?

> Don't get me wrong. They (subjects and objects) are ideas
> derived from experience and function pretty well in
> experience most of the time. But when you're asking certain
> philosophical questions, that is not one of those times.
> This is not one of those times.

You seem to be saying that it is not appropriate to discuss subjects and 
objects in philosophical queries.  Since philosophy is an exploration of the 
nature of reality, why should experiential entities be exempted?  Aristotle, 
Kant, Spinoza, Descartes, and James certainly didn't exclude them.  Why 
would Mr. Pirsig, who called experience "the cutting edge of Reality", 
consider it inappropriate to include the subject of experience in a 
philosophical discourse, now or at any time?

Essentially speaking,
Ham