[MD] Philosophy and Abstraction

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,


On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 4:37 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> In post #1, Steve said:
> The anti-Platonist in me gets concerned when he [Pirsig] talks about this
> primary reality as something that we can get closer to or further from, as
> something that the mystic is in touch with and the rest of us are not. ..
> You'd rather wenot read such statements as Platonism, but Matt and I wish
> that he wouldn't say things that can be so easily construed as Platonism.
>
> In post #2, Steve said:
> You've got it twisted. Matt and I obviously don't see Pirsig and James as
> enemies. Far from it. The issue is that you seem to see Rorty and anyone
> else as an enemy who doesn't embrace the terms "direct" or "pure" or
> "primary" with regard to experience.
>
> In post #3, Steve said:
> Platonism IS the problem with those terms, but it's not that I think Pirsig
> is a Platonist or intends those terms to punch up Platonism. I don't. ... I
> prefer not to use the terms that Pirsig uses for doing anti-Platonism when I
> do anti-Platonism because I think those terms are too easily construed as
> more Platonism.
>
>
>
>
> dmb says:
> Can you see how I might be a bit frustrated by this?
>

Steve:
nope


DMB:

> You know the terms don't really reflect Platonism and yet you reject them
> anyway simply because it's possible to misconstrue them? The anti-Platonist
> is concerned even though you say that you know there is no cause for
> concern?
>


Steve:
It's not Pirsig I am concerned about. I already said that I see him as an
anti-Platonist. I am concerned about how Pirsig will be read by others and
mostly about how I would be read by others if I used those terms.

DMB:

> Well, I think that's a very weak and silly reason to avoid Pirsig's central
> terms, especially in a Pirsig discussion group.
>


Steve:
If "pure" "direct" and "primary" are Pirsig's central terms, that's news to
me.


Steve said:
Since Pirsig says that the quality that can be defined is not Quality, I
can't legitimately be faulted by a Pirsigian for avoiding defining Quality
with those or any other specific terms. I certainly have not "rejected the
whole MOQ [the philosophy of Robert M Pirsig] in a very big way" though I
have more than a couple quibbles with it.

 dmb says:
> But Quality is NOT referenced by just those specific terms and none of the
> terms are intended as definitions. When I explain that "pure experience"
> only means the pre-conceputal cutting edge of experience, you reject all the
> terms and generally deny that value and validity of the general notion of
> Quality as the first moment of awareness.


Steve:
I think that is fine as far as it goes as a teaching tool so long as one
also understands that it's _always_ the first moment of awareness. It's
always now. At that point, it's best to drop the pre/post business.


DMB:

> Beyond the misplaced anti-Platonism, there is another very large problem.
> If you translate all the negative descriptions from all the terms used for
> DQ, we can say it is not reflection, not verbal, not intellectual, not
> conceptual, not mediated, not divided, not the past, not the future, not a
> thing, not a thought and it's not static. Rorty says its language all the
> way down. Since language is all the things that DQ is not and language goes
> all the way down, there is no DQ. Or if there is we have to remain silent
> about it and philosophy ought not go there.




> You really don't see how that makes Rorty an enemy of the MOQ. You really
> don't see how Rortyism leads you to eviscerate the MOQ? Really?
>

Steve:
"Language all the way down" is one of those slogans that you wish Rorty
wouldn't use just like I wish Pirsig wouldn't say "primary, direct, pure."
I'd like you to read "language all the way down" only as a denial (that
language can be disentangled from philosophy) rather than as an affirmation
(that reality is language). The latter reading is obviously absurd, so Rorty
would probably have expected that you wouldn't make it. But, by analogy to
my position on "direct, pure, primary," you may be right to think that Rorty
should have taken more care to protect his work from this reading. You may
be right to think that that is a slogan that wouldn't help you in your
articulation of anti-Platonism.

I know you want to make Rorty out to be an enemy, but I see them as having
many similar philosophical concerns and saying many of the same sorts of
things in different ways.


DMB:

> I mean, what DO you think Pirsig's central term is all about? I'd honestly
> like to know.


 Steve:
It means that, in Dewey's words, reality is an evaluative term.

Best,
Steve