[MD] knowledge

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB, Matt,

> Steve said to Matt:
> ... I'm trying to sort out epistemology (Pirsig's idealism where quality gives rise to ideas which gives rise to matter) from ontology (radical empiricism, reality = quality cut into dyamic/static) and cosmology (evolution of value patterns) in the MOQ. Maybe you can help? DMB says that in the MOQ epistemology IS ontology and that radical empiricism is epistemology, but I can't see how it makes any sense to say so since epistemology and ontology are answers to different questions.
>
> dmb says:
> I think you're trying to understand these issues from within SOM. I mean, the distinction between what there is (ontology) and how we can know it (epistemology) assumes a distinction between reality and experience that the radical empiricist has rejected already.

Steve:
My understanding of metaphysics is that it breaks down into ontology
and and cosmology (though I think Pirsig uses the term metaphysics
very loosely to mean philosophy). I'm not "trying to understand these
issues from within SOM" as ontology or cosmology, but I do think that
epistemology always takes a dististinction between knower and known
for granted. Epistemology does not need to be SOM in taking the
subject-object ontological distinction as fundamental and given by
reality, but I think it is always "SOE" (subject-object epistemology)
in taking the subject-object distinction as a useful one for the
purpose of talkaing about how we may be justified in believing what we
believe. I think saying SOE is redundant since epistemology always
includes SO. For example, you describe epistemology as "how we can
know it." I don't know how else to talk about knowledge without
talking about "we" and "it" as you just did (and as I think you always
do when you talk about epistemology even with your "pure experience"
of the baby, the meditator, and the drug user). I think we can still
talk about knowledge without giving "we" and "it" ontological status
and thus avoiding SOM, but if we are doing epistemology, I can't see
how we are not using the concepts of knower and known. At best we can
drop the "it" to get us to "believer" and "belief," but without
hypothesizing a believer, I can't see how we could be said to be
talking about epistemology. I do understand the radical empiricist's
point that the believer need not be thought of as having any
ontological status outside or prior to experience, and I agree, but
once we start talking about epistemological issues like "what is good
to believe" we are always accepting the hypothesis of the existence of
a believer at least for the sake of argument.


DMB:
> As you might recall, James says that the first great pitfall from which radical empiricism will save us is a fake idea of the relation between knower and known. His doctrine of pure experience says knower and known, subject and object, are secondary concepts derived from experience and not the ontological ground of experience... (ZAMM 239)

Steve:
I take the above to be irrelevent here because it is about ontology
rather than epistemology.


> Steve said:
>
> >From an epistemological perspective (knower/known) it is impossible to sort out the dynamic and static aspects of consciousness (the process of defining DQ).  .., this issue calls to mind the highway full of nothing but "you don't know how to drive!" image I applied to accusations of SOM around here such as that DMB recently made on this point when I said that doing  epistemology always involves supposing a distinction between a knower and what is known. "That's SOM!" I don't think so unless epsitemology is always SOM. I think is just a useful assumption sometimes and is what is always assumed in doing epistemology.
>
>
> dmb says:
> You do realize that the distinction between knower and known is just an alternative set of terms with the same meaning. The knower is the subject and the known is the object. Since these are the assumptions (or this is the dualism) attacked by radical empiricism.

Steve:
As I've said before, I think radical empiricism is useful for making
this attack on subject-object ontology, but is not useful for
epistemology--answerring the question, as you put it, "how we can know
it." I think we can drop the "it" by saying something like "how we can
be justified in our beliefs" (a formulation that avoids correspondence
notions of truth) but never the "we" when talking about epistemology.


DMB:
Obviously, that means we have an empiricism that does NOT assume that
distinction in its formulations. Instead of having a knower and a
thing to be known, the central distinction is between two kinds of
knowing, between two kinds of experience, namely dynamic and static.
There is the stream of experience and then there are the conceptual
buckets we TAKE from it. Subject and objects are in the buckets.
Conversation, intersubjective agreement and all our vocabularies are
in the buckets too. Even the MOQ, as a system of ideas, can only be so
many buckets from the stream.

Steve:
You still haven't gotten around the "we" that is doing the taking even
though "we"'s ontological status is demoted in this image of knowing
as merely "in the buckets." My point is still, if "we" weren't part of
this imagine of knowing at all, we couldn't be said to be talking
about knowledge.

What I think is gained for epistemology in dropping the subject-object
ontological picture is the idea that we don't HAVE to do epistemology,
i.e. take the knower/known relationship for granted. When we find
problems with our epistemological ideas (some Platypi), we can go back
and question the hypothesis of the believer that lies behind all our
epistemological ideas which was accepted only for the sake of argument
to see how far it goes. This is where Matt's comment that "I think we
have...reason to think that Pirsig goes back and forth [between
epistemology and ontology] as the occasion demands."

Best,
Steve