[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Marsha, DMB, Matt, all,


Matt said:
Heidegger suggested that Newton's laws were neither true nor false
before Newton dreamed them up.  Rorty said this about it in 2000: "I
once tried to defend Heidegger's audacity, but my defense went over
like a lead balloon.  So I have resigned myself to intuiting, like
everybody else, that a true sentence was true before anybody thought
it up."


dmb said:
I think Pirsig is even more audacious than Heidegger and he did not
resign himself in the face of that audacity either....

Shall we "intuit "the opposite "like everybody else", because
defending this audacious idea of "true" doesn't go over well? Doesn't
exactly win you medals for bravery, but I guess it would be easier to
just go along with what you know ain't so.

Yea, that's the ticket."


Marsha settles the "Pirsig's theory of truth" issue:
>
> Hmmm.
>
> Truth as relative:
>
>
> Anthony writes:
> Intellectual values include truth, justice, freedom, democracy and,
> trial by jury. It’s worth noting that the MOQ follows a pragmatic
> notion of truth so truth is seen as relative in his system while
> Quality is seen as absolute.  In consequence, the truth is defined
> as the highest quality intellectual explanation at a given time.
>
> RMP:
> If the past is any guide to the future this explanation must be taken
> provisionally; as useful until something better comes along. One
> can then examine intellectual realities the same way he examines
> paintings in an art gallery...
>      (McWatt,Anthony,MOQ Textbook)



Steve:

Thanks so much for finding this, Marsha. It looks like the matter of
"Pirsig's theory of truth" is settled. The use of the paintings in a
gallery scene is interesting since it sets "intellectual realities"
equal to "truths" instead of whole philosophical systems, which is how
I always read it.

It is very clear to me from the quote above from Ant's textbook that
Ant sees Pirsig as having the relativistic theory of truth proposed by
James. If we can assume (we can, can't we?) that Pirsig approved of
the statement Ant made above ("the MOQ follows a pragmatic notion of
truth so truth is seen as relative in his system") then Marsha has
been vindicated in supporting relativism as an MOQer and DMB has been
vindicated in asserting that Pirsig follows James in his definition of
truth as "what works."

The problem for DMB of course is that he wants to support this theory
of truth but deny the relativism it entails. After years of attacking
Rorty for being a relativist, DMB now claims that Rorty wasn't
"audacious" enough in his relativism because Rorty didn't have the
balls to say that the earth wasn't round until people thought it was
round. Let me be clear that I don't think that there is anything
dangerous about the relativism of Marsha, DMB, James, and Pirsig. It
is DMB who thinks there is some big danger in relativism. My problem
in this thread has always been to expose DMB's attacks on Rorty as a
relativist as having occurred over a background of DMB maintaining a
relativistic theory of truth himself.

Rorty is clearly not a relativist with respect to truth. Apparently,
DMB can now see that Rorty just wasn't "audacious " enough to be one.
Rorty would have been quite ready to say what DMB can not--that
slavery was wrong wherever and whenever it was practiced whether or
not anyone could ride this belief to successful action at a given
point in time. What Rorty would be perhaps too quick to add to this
statement is that he knows of no way to make the point that slavery is
wrong in such a way that appeals to standards that transcend his own
historical context. He can't say that slavery violates something
nonhuman to which we have a duty such as Reason or the Moral Law.

It is such disclaimers that Rorty makes that get DMB and others up in
arms about Rorty. Such people read Rorty saying that he is no more
able to step outside of his skin to compare his own beliefs and
standards for justification with the world as it really is than the
Nazi is, and they cry, Relativist!" (Even by those like DMB who also
can't imagine stepping out of their own skins.) But Rorty is no
relativist with respect to truth as Pirsig and James are. He is no
relativist with respect to justification, either. He is only a
relativist with respect to the second order justification question,
"how can we know that our culture's standards for justification are
the correct ones?" Even on this question, we are not at a complete
loss. The fact that we can ask the question means that we can be
critical of our own standards for justification and try to make them
better. It is just that at this point, Rorty has no definition for
what "better" means any more than Pirsig does. "Better" for Rorty
means no more than something like "having more good and less bad."

The reason why I am not concerned about DMB's (and Pirsig's)
relativism with respect to truth and Rorty's (and my own) relativism
with respect to second order justification is that DMB, Pirsig, Rorty,
and I all have something far better than an unconvincing claim to have
a philosphical foundation. We all have thoughtful outlooks and are
willing to put our own standards for justification up to criticism.
And we all have moral clarity. We are all willing to say something is
wrong when we recognize it as wrong. The sort of "relativism" to worry
about is the sort that says "who am I to say that female circumcision
is wrong?" In my opinion, what such people are lacking is not the
right philosophical foundation but the lack of any moral clarity.

I think the reason that such people have lost their moral clarity is
because they have been taught to expect some sort of philosophical
foundation--our arguments need to rest on unassailable first
principles--before they can be justified in saying that something is
wrong. But we don't need a foundation to have moral clarity, we just
need to be able to make a good argument. Whatever might be called
"relativistic" about DMB, Rorty, James, Pirsig, and I is of no concern
to me, because in the face of evil, we are all quite willing and able
to take action and make such good arguments. Our moral clarity is
superior to that of, say, George W Bush because unlike W, we see
ourselves as historically situated beings with no ability to stand
outside of our own context. Because we recognize our limitations, we
are critical of our own perspectives. Our ability to criticize our own
perspectives makes our moral clarity about our own perspectives better
in character than W's unselfcritical moral clarity. We are more likely
to be right, precisely because we recognize that we can be wrong.

Best,
Steve