[MD] DMB and Me

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB:

> Steve said:
> The "just" reveals your distaste. Philosophy is a linguistic practice. It isn't out of touch with reality. It can't take you closer to or further from reality. It is already part of reality.
>
> dmb says:
>
> It's not my distaste. It is the main thrust of radical empiricism. Radical empiricism says that the limits of "linguistic practice" have strangled philosophy for far too long already. This is definitely what I'm trying to get at. I'm trying to show you how this emphasis on language pushes against the whole point and purpose of the MOQ, against it's central term and against it's empiricism. As James puts it, "Philosophy must pass from words, that reproduce but ancient elements, to life itself, that gives the integrally new." He says, "There is no complete generalization, no total point of view, no all-pervasive unity, but everywhere some residual resistance to verbalization, formulation, discursification, some genius of reality that escapes from the pressure of the logical finger.." James and Pirsig are both saying that reality is much richer than words and concepts and that the overflowing wildness that can't grasped by the logical fingers is not just part of life, but the ce
>  ntral part of life. To the extent that our rationality and philosophies leave this part our, we are impoverished.






> dmb says:Yesterday I tried to show how the assumptions of subject-object metaphysics could be seen in Rorty's position, even as he was denying the possibility of objective knowledge. "They [Fish's idea of pragmatists] believe with Richard Rorty that 'things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include mental states' - the world, in short, is 'out there' -
>
> Steve said:
> That "the world is out there" bit doesn't sound like Rorty. I've only read him to use "out there" to poke fun at Platonists.
>
> dmb says:
>
> According to Stanley Fish and the New York Times, that's a quote from Rorty whether it sounds like him or not.

Steve:
Oh. Sorry. I had misread it as Fish's take on Rorty's position. I
still think you are reading Rorty wrong if you take this to be a
metaohysical assertion.



DMB:
Anyway, you've interrupted poor Stanley Fish in the middle of a
sentence. After "the world, in short, is 'out there'", Fish goes on to
say, "but they also believe that the knowledge we have of the world is
not give by it [the world], but by men and women who are hazarding
descriptions within the vocabularies and paradigms that are in place
and in force in their cultures. Those descriptions are judged to be
true or false, accurate and inaccurate, according to measures and
procedures that currently have epistemic authority, and not according
to their fit with the world as it exists independently of any
description." "While there surely is such a world, our only access to
it, Rorty and Margolis say, is through our own efforts to apprehend
it. Margolis: 'The real world ... is not a construction of mind or
Mind ... but the paradigm of knowledge or science is certainly con
>  fined to the discursive power of the human.'" (Stanley Fish quoting Rorty and Margolis and explaining their neopragmatic position.)
>
> Steve replied:
> Do you oppose the common sense notion that you are in the world? I think we can keep that notion without falling back into SOM so long as this notion isn't used as metaphysics. If it is a tool for using reality rather than a way of getting at what reality really is there is nothing wrong with saying the above as a denial of idealism as well as scientific realism.
>
> dmb says:
> I'm asking you to look at the assumptions at work in their reasoning.

Steve:
Yeah, but I'm asking you if you disagree with what Rorty said. Do you
disagree with Rorty that you, DMB, are in the world?


DMB:
Fish has framed the pragmatist position in terms of a real world out
there and our ability to access that world.

Steve:
Well that is how you are reading it anyway. I don't think Rorty is
playing metaphysics here anymore than you will be when you finally
admit that you agree with the common sense notion that you exist in
the world.



> Steve said:
> You said, "Matt is saying that philosophy is confined to the things that can be put under a description." Everything can be put under a description, can't it? What is Matt leaving out of bounds for philosophy in saying this? If you say DQ, you've just put DQ under a description. You've paradoxically described it as something that cannot be described.
>
> dmb says:
> Right, DQ is defined as undefinable because it can't be put under a description.

Steve:
It *can* be described. Pirsig did a heck of a lot of description of
it. It just can't be exhaustively defined.


DMB:
It's not a metaphysical chess piece.

Steve:
Except that it is because Pirsig made it one.

DMB
It's the immediate flux of life. I'm making a case that DQ is the
centerpiece of the MOQ despite that fact.

Steve:
Quality is the centerpiece. DQ is an aspect of Quality.

DMB:
I'm also making a case that Pirsig thinks philosophies should make
room for all our experiences regardless of whether they are easily put
into words or not.

Steve:
No one disagrees with this.

DMB:
And finally, I'm saying that the linguistic approach pushes back
against this effort to expand empiricism and broaden our philosophies
to include the nonverbal.

Steve:
Taking a different turn is not the same as pushing back against the
work that others are doing following a different path.

I will say, however, that if doing philosophy is a linguistic
practice, then broadening this practice to include the nonverbal can't
be done. It can include the nonverbal if you are willing to include
the Buddha silently holding up a lotus flower as philosophy. That's
probably not what you mean doing nonverbal philosophy. You mean that
philosophy is not just a linguistic practice. It is words *about*
things that are not words and things that are not things. It is words
about experience, whereas  the linguistic folks like Rorty are fine
with the common sense notion that words are about experience, they
don't want to make a big metaphysical deal about that common sense
notion.

Best,
Steve