[MD] Royce's Absolute

[John Carl]

Sigh.


Well, I guess I can't complain.  I was afraid this would happen and of
course, it is, again, a total failure in communication.


I blame myself.


Once again fears create their own reality but I dunno how to break the cycle
when the fear is based upon such a empirically obvious  obtuseness.


You ask an academic for a simple, logical process of dialogue, carefully
treading one word at a time, and what do you get in response?



>  dmb says:
> I've already posted Pirsig's thoughts on the Absolute several times. The
> annotations on idealism, where he wants to drop Bradley's God, and the last
> page of chapter 29, where he denies that Quality is some kind of Hegelian
> Absolute. I could dig up at least one more specific and explicit denial
> (from chapter 26, 27, or 28, if memory serves vaguely) but that hardly seems
> necessary.





So since you can't recall the exact quote, and you don't remember the
wording, or the place you first read it, would you mind then, in your own
words, giving the argument against....  against.... hmmm....  how should I
put this is as succinctly as possible ...  Absolute Quality?  And not the
Hegelian straw man you've got in your head, but what I've outlined in
thousands of missives posted on this forum since day one.  You've railed
against it for lots of subjective reasons, but I really don't understand the
gist of your problem with Royce's Absolute (other than you don't understand
it  - but that doesn't explain why you DON'T WANT to understand it...)



There?  Does that question make sense?  Can you understand what is meant by
my question?  Can you form a hypothesis on a possible way of answering the
question that comes within 186,000 miles of meeting my query?


I'll repeat it for you.  Hey dave, what's wrong with Quality as an
Absolute?  Why is that incompatible with the MoQ?  Is it just the name?  If
instead of Absolute we used a different term, but meant the exact same
thing, without the connotations to bob, would that be
logically-philosophically acceptable?


Or are we just not bothering with nasty ole reason anymore, since that's
actually the whole point of the MoQ?


I probably should have asked this question a long time ago.  Now that I
think about it.  Silly me.



I hate even asking, because of that problem Arlo mentioned  of academics
being versed in minutae without being able to actually think or do
philosophy anymore, but as well as my fears, I have hope, that someday it
WILL happen.   And so I plug along, praying that, dmb will actually
demonstrate actual thought on this forum, and that will be an exciting and
wonderful day for us all.


I can hardly wait.




> dmb says:
>
> Well, if you are suggesting that you know Royce better than the author of
> the SEP article, then you are not a reasonable person. "Kelly A. Parker is
> Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Grand
> Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. He was a founding officer of
> the Josiah Royce Society and served as the Society's President in 2007."
> C'mon John. Royce is hardly accessible to amateurs, your man Kuklick says
> you can't understand Royce without understanding his complex logic and
> you've confessed that you tend to skim when you read Royce. It's just not
> realistic to pretend you're above such things.
>
>
My point has been that most of the books about Royce have pointed out how
misunderstood he's been by mainstream academia.  They all in unison refute
the charge of Hegelianism, and Parker got the chronology of Royce's
"Absolute Pragmatism" phase wrong for sure.

I'm no scholar, I admit.  But even so, I appreciate Royce's logic even as a
music lover doesn't need to be a composer in order to appreciate a symphony.


Much of what Parker wrote clashes with the other's I've read, regardless of
whatever expertise is aknowledged by being "president" of an organization.


> I'm trying to help you out without being too condescending about it. So I
> just fired off this intro without any explicit disagreement and without much
> comment but it was aimed at correcting a whole bunch of your misconceptions
> about the thing you think you're defending. C'mon. If you refuse to hear a
> definition of Royce's Absolute from the President of the Royce Society, then
> you're not going to listen to anybody and that means you don't really care
> what the truth of the matter is.
>
>

I carefully explained at the beginning of this "debate" that I had a narrow
circle of authority that I respected on the subject.  Perhaps the pres. of
the Royce Society is a great person, who has some keen insights.  Who knows?
    Appeals to authority go over very poorly to me.  And Socrates and bob,
for that matter.  We like to see the actual reasoning, actual reasons.
 Actual thinking.

C'mon.  Try and do some.  It'll be good for you to start learning how.  Who
knows, you might need it some day.





> It seems to me that you've had more than a fair chance to make your case.
> And trying to get you to be fair minded about my case has proven to be
> nothing but an exercise in frustration. You'll forgive me if my enthusiasm
> wanes, eh? Have a nice weekend.
>



I certainly forgive you for your waning enthusiasm.  I empathize completely.

Waiter?

This conversation isn't any good, can we have another?


John