[MD] Radical Empiricism and Psychological Nominalism

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Mark,

You tell an interesting story, very similar to the one I would tell, but 
while yours is more or less a downbeat story about how Western 
philosophy keeps taking wrong turns since the ancient Greeks, I 
would tell a more or less parallel story, but upbeat, about how 
Western philosophy keeps taking, eventually, the right turns in order 
to create what we have now.  For example, a lot of what you say 
about communication and social aspects and whatnot I could agree 
with on a philosophical level: the social constrains the individual.  
The only difference is that you give it a very negative spin ("the 
social dominates the individual"), whereas I would give it a positive 
spin (e.g., there would be no individual without the social).

Perhaps the crux can be found when you say, "the critical point as I 
see it, is that we have chosen to define the internal with the external.  
The more holistic approach would be to define the external with the 
internal."  I don't think that's right.  I know exactly what you are 
saying when you imply that "psychological nominalism" attempts to 
define the internal (consciousness) with the external (language), 
and that you wish to go the other direction.  However, I take it be 
the mark of the "holistic approach" to be the _rejection_ of the 
distinction between external and internal at this level of 
philosophical abstraction.  And when one takes into account the 
purposes towards which, e.g., Sellars and Rorty were deploying a 
slogan like "all consciousness is a linguistic affair," then it becomes 
more difficult to tell what the difference is that makes a difference 
between an anti-Platonism that seems to reduce internal to external, 
or external to internal: because when the chips are down, the only 
reason a holist would risk the appearance of reduction is because 
they are banging against what Dewey called that whole nest and 
brood of Greek dualisms.  Because I take it that Pirsig, when he 
rejects the S/O dilemma in ZMM, is saying that the real "fork in the 
road," as you put it, is _not_ the subjective/objective distinction, 
such that you're willing to say that "experience as subjective 
creates the objective."  That, I think, is a red herring.

Matt