[MD] On Pragmatism

[Matt Kundert]

> According to Fish, pragmatists would dismiss the MOQ's first principle of 
> universal Quality

That's not true.  What Fish meant by "first principle" is not 
what Pirsig meant by Quality.  Fish means a Platonic Form 
by which A) there is a method which B) we can find out 
what this Form is and C) kill off all other intellectual lifeforms 
because (A) certifies that our principle is the _real_ principle 
(as opposed to all those other fake ones).

When you use "universal," Platt, you typically mean this WMD 
version of Quality--Quality is the real deal, and therefore 
everything else is bunk.  I don't believe Pirsig, however, 
means this by "universal," but something more like "covers 
everything," which when you are constructing a metaphysics, 
of how things hang together, is just an articulation of 
generalizability.  And "first principle," in this sense, is just the 
first axiom of an articulated system of hanging things 
together--of a portrait in James' hallway that people judge, 
partly according to various aesthetic principles you are 
otherwise so intent on emphasizing (an emphasis I think is 
right and at odds with your occasional philosophical 
authoritarianism).

Fish is rejecting "first principles" as Archimedean points, which 
is to reject Platonism and Cartesianism.  It be like suggesting 
that Euclid's axioms destroys Riemann's because Euclid's were 
"first principles."  That's not how we interpret geometrical 
axioms, however, as Pirsig can well tell you.

Matt
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/210850552/direct/01/