[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[John Carl]

Hi Steve and Matt,

Steve, you reminded me of a passage I've quoted before from Bruce Kuklick on
this subject:

>
> Steve: As pragmatists we probably can't be realists but can we
> be anti-anti-realists? (I sometimes cheer for Putnam when he used
> "anti-realist" as an epithet.) Isn't pragmatism  supposed to be a
> "none of the above" in the realism/idealism debate? I'm not sure what
> the issues are actually. I suppose there are epistemic and ontologic
> aspects to untangle?
>
>
"Both James and the Cambridge logicians have been pragmatic in their
epistemology and from Peirce to the present this pragmatism has had an
affinity for metaphysical idealism.  Peirce was always an idealist of some
kind; in Mind and the World Order Lewis tilts for pages against idealism,
and despite this form of 'realism' often lapses in ambiguous forms of
expression and states that there may be no issue between him and idealists.

When Royce and James were at Harvard the issues between pragmatism and
idealism were perhaps most muddied because the two men were pictured as
opponents.  I shall try to show, however that Royce was a pragmatist as
early as 1880 and that it was easy for him to develop an idealistic ontology
*because* he was a pragmatist.

The epistemological disputes between the two men were over specific and
highly technical points, but they shared certain peculiar beliefs whose
central feature we may label pragmatic and whose affinities to idealism we
ought to recognize."

John:

I concur that I'm not sure either, "what the issues are to untangle", Steve,
but it looks like according to at least one expert, they are very tangled
indeed.



>
> Matt:
> >To not think
> > bivalence so applies is to be an anti-realist, which makes
> > Pirsig an anti-realist/idealist.  Yet, on the other hand,
> > Rorty thinks Dummett's frame is a bad one and for years
> > urged that Davidson's philosophy of language commits one
> > to going "beyond realism/antirealism" (which Arthur Fine, in
> > the philosophy of science, was urging for years, too).
>
>
I agree with you too Matt, in the assesment of Pirsig as also "some sort of
idealist".  Despite those pesky connotations!


> By the same token, I think that though justification is our only route
> to truth and truth cannot be used as the goal of inquiry, it is still
> a good idea to keep truth as a separate notion from justification. An
> argument along the lines as the above is how I would like to read
> Pirsig on the matter, but Ant said he was a relativist with resepect
> to truth, and Pirsig I suppose went along with it.
>
>
Willingly?

take care,


John