[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[MarshaV]

Steve,

I did hesitate for a while before posting this quote.  I hope I 
didn't upset any apple cart by doing so.  


Marsha 
 





On May 6, 2010, at 8:55 AM, Steven Peterson wrote:

> 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
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