[MD] All the way down

[John Carl]

dave the non-polemic, I appreciated this.   Whiles back I asked/challenged
to know the pragmatic value of radical empiricism, and I'm glad to see a
cogent answer.  I figured if I was patient enough...

dmb resumes:
> I take these examples literally. The mechanic, the mathematician, the
> scientist and philosophers are all working within systems of rationality.
> They're all doing intellectual work within the limits of language and
> reason. But Pirsig is keen to get at "the Buddha that exists within analytic
> thought, and gives that analytic thought its direction". This move solves a
> whole slough of philosophical problems, but I think the main idea here is to
> improve actual mechanics, scientists and philosophers. It's about bringing
> all your faculties to bear and a deep engagement with whatever you're doing.
> It is aimed at down to earth stuff, which a lofty and worthy goal. It's also
> exceedingly sane, because that's where we live; practical, everyday reality.
>
>
Well there are those dreamers, schemers and head-in-the-clouds type (mea
culpa) that seem to spend more time contemplating abstractions than
transactions.




> And that, gents, is why I object to the neo-pragmatic slogan. Pirsig agrees
> that our understanding of the world is a pile of analogies BUT he also says
> that Quality is the generator of this mythos, guides the train that pulls
> the boxcars full of analogies. The important idea here is that this central
> term (Quality in the first book and Dynamic Quality in the second book) is
> outside of language and outside of the mythos. This value-force is
> pre-intellectual and yet he's asserting "the formal recognition of Quality"
> within intellectual operations. That's what radical empiricism does. It
> makes the dynamic a crucial phase in the overall cognitive process. It
> explains the relations between the dynamic and static phases of experience
> as aspects of a single, co-operative process. This "formal acknowledgment of
> the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical
> vision at all. It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to
> actual scientific practice
>  ."
>
>
Ok then.  This is a good explanation, as far as it goes.  But getting into
the meat of the moment I wonder *how *does it expand, strengthen and bring
closer.   From my perspective, it requires something very much like Tim says
"faithe" to take a non-conceptual reality and use it in practical
experience.



> Again, I take the slogan to be a negative epistemological statement. It
> doesn't say the universe is made of words. It says that we can't get outside
> of language in an epistemological sense. It says our truths can only be
> justified within language and by language. But Pirsig is saying there is
> something outside of language that IS epistemologically important, that is
> the generator of language and this is a part of experience too.


If I and others oft seem befuddled by non-epistemological epistemology, can
you blame us?   And how you keep "generator of language" distinct from some
form of  theism is another befuddlement.  It almost seems more like a ploy,
than an actual philosophical thesis.



> One of the ways he uses to show that Quality is real by showing how the
> world can't function normally without it and trying to effect a repair job
> on a mode of rationality that functions badly without it. Rationality itself
> is the bike he's working on and fixing it entails a formal acknowledgment of
> the role of Quality in the overall cognitive process.
>
>
"Formal acknowledgement" translates to "rational explanation".  Rational
explanations of non-rational generators of language get me all tongue-tied -
or the mental equivalent of that phenomenon.  But despite my
"mind-tied-ness" I feel like I'm closer to agreement with you here than I
expected and there's satisfaction in this evolving process.   A hope, even a
faith, that rapprochement is achievable with patience.

Take care,

John