[MD] DMB and Me

[John Carl]

I thought philosophy was biography.

Now I'm all confused.  Are you sure you're right?




On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 4:22 PM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:

> Matt,
> Biography IS philosophy...
>
> thats about all I have to add..
> -Ron
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Tue, March 16, 2010 3:52:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [MD] DMB and Me
>
>
> Ian said:
> The problem being it's "the value of it" that Matt is
> concerned about, whereas Dave has a greater interest in
> articulating where it fits in academic philosophical argument.
> Matt confuses that issue by quoting academic philosophers
> and writers in attempting to express his concern
> intellectually - whereas his concern is not in fact intellectual.
> (Which I think is what Ron and John tried to say ?)
>
> Matt:
> Whereas I stoutly withhold judgment on whether or not I
> am confusing, I
> guess I don't see the distinction between
> "value of it" and
> "intellectual."  To use the kind of frame
> you are, I guess I would say
> that I am talking about
> intellectual value, just not the same exact
> kind as Dave.
> The difference, as I started putting it many years ago,
> is
> between doing biography and doing philosophy--the former
> cares about
> "what James did" and the latter about "what
> James can do for me."  To
> understand what "James" stands
> for in the second, "doing philosophy"
> statement, you need
> of course to understand some of the "doing
> biography."
> But your relationship to the biography is as Pirsig stated.
>
>
>
> "Academic," in what you say above, I think obscures
> another
> difference--the difference between "doing
> biography" and "doing
> professional philosophy."  Those two
> things are also different, the
> difference between "what
> James did" and "what James can do for a small
> conversation
> between people in Philosophy Departments."  This
> difference
> might roughly be called the difference between "doing
>
> history" and "doing philosophy."
>
>
>
> Where I might be confusing, in this sense, is that when I
> state what
> James does for me, I don't care when looking for
> support whether the
> people I quote were doing
> biography/history, professional philosophy,
> or philosophy.
>
>
>
> Or, perhaps, with respect to what Ron was saying (I think)
> about me
> always always being worried about Platonism and how
> annoying that is:
> what is confusing is that I have two eyes
> staring in two different
> directions--one on Platonism and one
> on me.  The problem is that
> Platonism turns
> into--sort of--professional philosophy (i.e. the
> conversation
> Plato began is [one branch of] the conversation now being
>
> continued by people in Philosophy Departments).  So it seems
> like I
> care and do not care about professional philosophy--the
> confusing part
> would not be this, but rather an unpredictability
> on my part in when
> and where I do care about it.
>
>
>
> I don't know how to rectify my unpredictability, but I'm not
> sure that
> my causing of confusion is systematic (even my
> unpredictability is not that unpredictable).  The attribution of
> a systematic
> cause for me saying weird things at weird times
> is the necessary step
> in "getting the hang of Matt," it's what
> one does to understand
> something/somebody.  So I certainly
> won't fault people for that,
> however I just reserve the right
> to input occasionally on what I think
> my "systematic cause" is
> (despite the fact that the first-person point
> of view does not
> certify by itself my estimation of myself as the right
> one), or
> at least the nearby one cause for things I just said.
>
>
>
> And how confusing is that.
>
>
>
> Matt
>
> p.s.  Pssst!  There's some hidden pragmatist philosophy in
> the last paragraph!  Who can name what it is?
>
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