[MD] knowledge

[Mary]

Hi DMB and Steve,

On Behalf Of david buchanan
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 3:23 PM
> 
> Steve replied:
> 
... if we are doing epistemology, I can't see how
> we are not using the concepts of knower and known. ...
> 
[Mary Replies] 
Agreed.  There's no way around the "We" and "It".
> 
> dmb says:
> 
to say that epistemology ALWAYS includes
> subject and objects is like saying astronomy ALWAYS includes the search
> for crystalline spheres
...
 Pirsig and James reject SOM, not epistemology. Big
> difference. Please allow me to present my evidence again, since you
> deleted from your reply as is your habit. You scoundrel, you.
> 
> "A casual reader may think James is careless in the way in which he
> shifts from 'experience' to 'reality' but this is NOT a sign of loose
> terminology or confusion. It reflects James's doctrine of 'pure
> experience' where the traditional distinctions between 'experience' and
> 'reality' are broken down." (Burkhardt's emphasis, p. xxvi)
> 
> "The story of modern epistemology, which can be written in terms of a
> refinement of questions concerning what is 'in' the mind and what is
> 'outside', is the story of implausible answers to a poorly formulated
> query. The dichotomy which is taken as so obvious between consciousness
> or mind and what is 'outside' of our minds is completely specious.
> There is only a continuous reality or experience which we TAKE in
> different ways." (Burkhardt's emphasis, xxvii)
> 
> "The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from
> the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of subjects and
> objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of
> Quality!" (ZAMM 239)
> 
> "Now it comes! Because Quality is the GENERATOR of the mythos. That's
> it. That's what he meant when he said, 'Quality is the continuing
> stimulus which causes us to create the world in which we live. All of
> it. Every last bit of it'. Religion isn't invented by man. Men are
> invented by religion. Men invent RESPONSES to Quality, and among these
> are responses is an understanding of what they themselves are."
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
EXACTLY.  But if you believe this, DMB, then what is your objection to
understanding SOM (not SOL as Bo might say) as the Intellectual Level?

> 
> Steve said:
> 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--answering 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.
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
DMB, Steve is right, here.  You may figure out a way to use semantic
backflips to drop the "it" from the sentence, but it's still a sentence
about "We" (the subject) thinking or talking about "It" a "not We".  I can
talk about a "red car" in terms of a "crimson conveyance", but it won't fool
most people.  They'll still know I'm talking about a "red car".

> dmb says:
> 
> It attacks the subject-object ontology precisely because such a dualism
> creates an artificial concept of what knowledge is. That is the picture
> in which the correspondence theory makes sense, in which there is a gap
> between the subject's experience and the objective reality he wants to
> know about. This is what radical empiricism rejects as an artificial
> conception of the relation between knower and known which all sorts of
> theories had to be invented to overcome. Those were epistemological
> theories, of course, and radical empiricism is overturning all that.
> With the rejection of SOM, everything changes. Words like "truth",
> "reality", "experience" and "epistemology" can no longer be understood
> in terms of SOM or if they are, you'll be totally confused as to the
> meaning of radical empiricism and the MOQ. And it certainly doesn't
> help that you're trying to get at this through the eyes of Rortyism
> because he does understand those words in terms of SOM.
> 
> Oh, and I think it's quite all right to use terms like "it", "we", "I"
> and other normal words when discussing these things. It might be
> possible to express that ideas without using any such terms but it
> would probably result in some very strange sentences. Using such terms
> does not entail any ontological commitments, especially when you use
> them to talk about the rejection of certain commitments.
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
DMB, I don't agree that it's ok to continue to use terms like "it", "we",
and "I" without entailing any ontological commitments.  How would that work?
Would everyone agree to preface their remarks with some sort of disclaimer
to distinguish statements intended to be using these terms facetiously from
those using them literally?  Wouldn't it just be easier to say that the
Intellectual Level is based in SOM and be done with it?  

> dmb said:
> 
> ... 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.
> Subjects 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.
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
We do not "know" Dynamic Quality.  Once it is "known" it is Static Quality -
Subjects and Objects - which we can only understand in terms of a
subject-object-logic framework.  This is true since that is the way the
brain of living entities on this planet have evolved to function.  We are
not capable of "understanding" Dynamic Quality.  That is sort of Pirsig's
point, isn't it?  Until this concept is absorbed, all is lip service to the
MoQ and does it a disservice.



> Steve replied:
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> Well, the idea is that we "knowers" are not ontologically distinct from
> what can be "known". What's known is experience. How can "we" be
> ontologically distinct from our own experience? 
[Mary Replies] 
An excellent question!  That is the purpose of the MoQ - to give us a way
out of the logical morass subject-object logic leaves us floundering in.  Do
not set up a straw man here, for I think everyone in this discuss is in your
camp without argument.

Again, for the radical
> empiricist reality is not the cause of our experience, it IS our
> experience. The distinction between pure experience and conceptual
> experience is the distinction between Dynamic Quality and static
> quality. That defines the limits of reality. The idea of an external
> physical environment is just that, an idea. Yes, it's a very good idea
> most of the time. It has great pragmatic value and that's why SOM can
> be counted as one of the paintings in our pluralistic gallery of truth.
> It agrees with experience and it works, but there is a downside and
> when you think it is the very structure of reality rather than just a
> good idea and you want to develop a theory of truth with that as your
> basic assumption, then you've got serious problems.
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
I totally agree with these statements, DMB.  The question is, do you have a
problem agreeing with me when I take them to their logical conclusion and
state that the Intellectual Level is SOM?

> Steve said:
> 
> 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."
> 
> 
[Mary Replies] 
Excellent point, Steve.

> 
> dmb says:
> 
> Not sure what you're saying here but it's pretty clear that ontology
> and epistemology go together and are interrelated, 

[Mary Replies] 
Yes, DMB, both epistemology and ontology are constructs of SOM.  Take that
flag and lay it down.  You are not getting anywhere useful with this
exercise in comparing and contrasting Pirsig with other philosophers because
they all take SOM as an unspoken assumption.  In the same way, a reasonable
atheist and a reasonable Catholic will never be able to merge their views
either.  The unspoken assumptions of each are too widely divergent.

Thank you,
Mary