[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[MarshaV]

Greetings Ham,

On Feb 6, 2010, at 3:04 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> On 2/6/2010, 2:31 PM, DMB wrote (to Marsha):
> 
>> As I understand it, the MOQ agrees with contextualism
>> (we're suspended in language) and it agrees that these contexts
>> are constructed (analogy upon analogy) but it says these contexts
>> are not constructed arbitrarily (Quality is not arbitrary or
>> capricious) and the pragmatic theory of truth does not abandon
>> empirical restraints (it has to agree with experience and function
>> in experience). These non-linguistic constraints distinguish the
>> MOQ from this relativism.
> 
> Marsha replied:
>> Where does the MoQ agree with contextualism?   I thought
>> the MoQ agreed with Protagoras' Measure Doctrine.
>> Arbitrary and capricious?  Is 'arbitrary and capricious' your
>> definition of relativism?
> 
> DMB explains:
>> All of the stuff I put in parentheses references Pirsig quotes.
>> I can't tell you what page it is where Pirsig agrees with the notion
>> that "we're suspended in language", where Pirsig says our world
>> is built of analogies, where Pirsig says that Quality is "not arbitrary
>> or capricious". But you've seen them. You know they're in there.
>> And how can you ask about the measure doctrine as if I hadn't
>> just quoted Pirsig on that? He said virtue "was absolutely central
>> to their teaching, but how are you going to teach virtue if you teach
>> the relativity of all ethical ideas?" and "QUALITY! VIRTUE!
>> DHARMA! THAT is what the Sophists were teaching!
>> NOT ethical relativism."?
>> 
>> But anyway, around here truth is the pragmatic truth.
>> It's provisional, self-correcting and grounded out in actual
>> experience.  Truth and falsity are what happens to an idea
>> in the course of experience. It's contextual and perspectival
>> but reality, which is to say experience, has a way of keeping us
>> honest and that's what prevents the MOQ from being a relativism.
> 
> Gav asks:
>> Isn't this splitting hairs? I mean if truth is contextual and perspectival
>> isn't that a form of relativism? 'Truth is relative'... another way of
>> saying that [it] might be 'context-dependent'.
>> 
>> Plato: good is relative; truth is absolute
>> Pirsig: truth is relative; good is absolute
>> Is this summary accurate?
> 
> David is, indeed, splitting hairs.  But so is Pirsig, by making Plato's Virtue a different sort of "good" than pragmatic or empirical truth.
> 
> This whole discussion, in my opinion, hinges on what one believes is the nature of Experience.  David says "reality, which is to say experience, has a way of keeping us honest and that's what prevents the MOQ from being a relativism."  But that's because he believes Experience=Reality (in the universal or objective sense).  I suspect that Marsha and Gav believe that Experience is subjective, which makes "man the measure" of Goodness, hence supporting the relativity (or provisional nature) of empirical truth.

Marsha:
Static patterns of value (conventional truth) is experienced differently relative to individual history and context (perhaps as karma (Forgive or correct me Khoo if I am way off track.)) as quoted in the SODV paper.  I see static patterns of value as being equivalent to conventional truth, or form, and Quality being equivalent to Absolute Truth, or Emptiness.  But then "form is emptiness; emptiness is form".  



Marsha 


> 
> The argument that "we're suspended in language" is begging the question. It's not the context of language that determines the validity of truth; it's experience.  And experience is not universal but relative to the individual. What "keeps us honest" in our precept of experiential truth is the universality of empirical principles.  The question we need to ask is: are Quality, Goodness and Virtue "absolute truths"?  Plato says no, Pirsig says yes.  But if Experience=Reality, then Quality (moral or esthetic goodness) cannot be absolute because experience is relative to the individual.
> 
> There is no "contextual" way around the fact that the reality of experience is relational.  THAT is an empirical truth.  If you want or need to believe that there's Absolute Truth, you have to extend your belief system beyond experiential existence.  In other words, you have to accept the metaphysical concept that the source of experiential reality is absolute and unconditional.  Be forewarned, however.  Because such a belief transcends subject/object perspectives of Truth -- including the truth of Quality itself -- it contradicts the fundamental premise of Pirsig's MoQ.
> 
> Essentially speaking,
> Ham
>