[MD] Philosophy and Abstraction

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dave,



from "Quine, Sellars, Empiricism, and the Linguistic Turn":

I think at the heart of the difference between philosophers attracted 

to the classical pragmatists but repelled by Rorty is the thought that 

radical empiricism returns us to the scene of life, a counter to 

abstract philosophical sterilities. I can empathize with the formulation, 

to the idea of pragmatism "returning us to the scene of life," a 

formula I've grown fond of. However, what I think we should rather 

say in most cases, is that philosophy is abstract by nature--that's what 

it is--and returning to the scene of life is something that people need 

to figure out how to do, not necessarily philosophies, or other abstract 

activities. For instance, why would we necessarily want theoretical 

physics to do so? Philosophy is Dewey's indirect experience--returning 

to life is knowing, as Wittgenstein put it, when to put philosophy down.



DMB said:

This is an example of where you gleefully embrace a position that 

makes me cringe. I also think you're mis-characterizing and 

misreading the situation.



Roughly, if the scene of life is DQ and philosophical abstractions are 

static quality, then you would be saying that DQ is something people 

need to figure out, not philosophies. Isn't that fair?



Matt:

Sort of.  When I wrote that line, I had in mind Pirsig's line in Lila: 

"societies and thoughts and principles themselves are no more than 

sets of static patterns.  These patterns can't by themselves perceive 

or adjust to Dynamic Quality.  Only a living being can do that." 

(Ch. 13, Bantam paperback 185)



I've always had a hard time assimilating that line, because shouldn't 

it seem as if philosophies/ideas should adapt to their dynamic 

environment?  And, further, once one really takes seriously the notion 

that we don't _have_ static patterns but _are_ static patterns, then 

that too makes it difficult to see what, exactly, is adjusting to DQ that 

isn't societies, thoughts, and principles themselves.  If we take 

seriously the picture of reality in the SODV where DQ is the background, 

then that line becomes somewhat obscure.



What I think Pirsig meant, and how I construed him implicitly in that 

passage (the fuller context of which is the last six paragraphs of that 

paper), is that, say we think of philosophies on the analogy of maps 

(following Ch. 8).  This externalizes the map from the person holding 

the map.  The map qua map does not respond to its environment, the 

person does.  And the person has a pencil, and can keep erasing and 

adding topographical marks to better negotiate the environment as 

the person sees fit given the person's experience.  But after awhile, 

when the map is full of smudges and is hard to see, the person faces 

the choice of starting again with the original map, trading in for a 

different one, or trying his own hand at drawing a map from a blank 

piece of paper (and perhaps borrowing a few useful landmarks from 

various other maps).



One helpful part of this analogy is that it can allow us to distinguish 

between _philosophies_ and _intellectual patterns_.  If we think of 

the latter as what every person has a random collection of, then we 

can see the former as self-conscious human creations for 

straightening out the massively complex and unconscious patterns 

we inherit through acculturation.



Your specific claim is that my construal of Dewey in the above 

passage suggests that philosophies need not figure DQ out.  "I'm 

fairly certain that putting DQ into our philosophies - or rather some 

working concepts about DQ - is the main mission of the MOQ."  I 

can't say I disagree with this point, nor do I think my construal of 

Dewey does so, particularly when you phrase it as "working 

concepts about DQ."  On the analogy of maps, one central concern 

of Pirsig has been to write into our maps a notion of change, of 

openness, of the element that will always escape Platonic 

encapsulation (what I've called the Quality as anti-essence thesis).  

I think this is perfectly consistent with my construal and general 

project and I'm not sure where you see the conflict.



We are, in part, intellectual patterns and these patterns respond to 

DQ.  One particular activity of the conglomerate of static patterns 

known as "the person" is to create a small slice of intellectual 

patterns whose purpose is to consistently map the terrain of life 

and everything in it.  One thing map-makers have learned is that a 

good map should include the person changing the map to better 

negotiate the terrain.  And part of this means rejecting the 

closedness of Platonism.



So when you say, "The question is whether or not it's a good idea 

to exclude certain kinds of experience from our reflections," all I 

can say is, "yes, I agree: I, like you, do not think I'm excluding any 

kind of experience in a pernicious manner."



I think you are running far too fast from the limited scope of my 

remarks to generalized impressions.  Moving too quickly obscures 

all the inferential connections that we must examine between 

text, the intentions of a text, the local consequences of the text, to 

the remote consequences you see ever on the horizon.  If we are 

ever to have a productive conversation, we have to move slower 

and more patiently than that.



Matt