[MD] Realism and anti-realism

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
I'll admit to being a "math nerd" philosopher. Now, can you explain how the response of the "neurotic artist" philosopher with regard to realism/anti-realism is superior? I understand that to you my response feels nerdy, but I don't know what you find wrong with my argument if anything, and you haven't made an alternative case for a MOQer/pragmatist position on realism/anti-realism.


dmb says:
Like I already said, that is a debate in analytic philosophy and it's hardly relevant to pragmatism. I'm not offering a superior position on the issue. I'm saying that pragmatism is beyond that debate. That's the title of Hildebrand's book, in fact; "BEYOND REALISM AND ANTIREALISM". (Yes, Rorty's paper by that title is included in Hildebrand's bibliography.) In any case, I was making a larger point about being a "math nerd" philosopher.

To put it roughly, as Pirsig says, squareness can be defined as an absence of Quality, as an inability to perceive Quality. Squareness is the disease in philosophy that Pirsig is trying to cure. As you may recall, Pirsig conducted a little thought experiment to test the reality of Quality. What happens to the world if you subtract Quality from it, he asked? Grocery stores were radically altered, art disappeared, etc.. The world became unrecognizable, not to mention bleak as hell. The only things that remained the same were our forms of rationality, things like math and formal logic were unaffected by the absence of Quality. Why should that be, he wondered? Math nerd philosophy is exactly what's wrong with philosophy. 

This is not to say that logic and math have no value. Pirsig goes on, of course, to explain that classically-minded fact-loving Aristotelians don't necessarily have to be nerds, squares or assholes. He goes on to explain how physicists are creative artists in their own way, how the motorcycle mechanic and the philosopher can be deeply engaged artists too. This pushes back against every otherworldly nerd-cock logic-chopper who ever infected the world with his quasi-autistic squareness.

Dewey said that certainty is something like the psychological equivalent of physical security. The notion of "Cartesian anxiety" almost seems too specific. I mean, the desire for philosophical certainty goes all the way back to first philosophers, the pre-Socratic philosophers. Math nerds were among the first squares in Western Civilization and the founders of analytic philosophy were math nerds. It's poison and the MOQ is supposed to be the antidote. The whole point is to reverse this absence of Quality, this squareness in our philosophies.