[MD] Changes in 2011

Andre Broersen andrebroersen at gmail.com
Fri Jan 7 02:55:42 PST 2011


John to dmb:

Furthemore, we both know, my real issue isn't getting Bradley's congruence
to the MoQ, it's getting Royce's - the American side of Absolute Idealism
which by the end of Royce's life had evolved to something called "Absolute
Pragmatism" and since Royce was Jame's lifelong friend and debate partner, I
find a great deal of worthy discussion there concerning Royce's congruence
and the MoQ -

Andre:
You are quite tenacious John, in your defence of Royce and his Absolute. You even drag James' friendship with Royce into the argument as evidence of congruence of Royce's Absolute and the MOQ.
The historical evidence however is quite different. James, in preparing his Edinburgh lectures wrote how he intended to 'destroy both [Royce] and the Absolute'.

There is a photograph of James and Royce on a stone wall at Chocorua (James' property). The photo was 'snapped just as James was saying 'Damn the Absolute', arguing that 'The truth is too great for any one actual mind, even though that mind be dubbed 'the Absolute',  to know the whole of it. The facts and worths of life need many cognizers to take them in. There is no point of view absolutely public and universal'( William James In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, R. Richardson, p381)

James was a gentleman but he did not let his friendship with Royce cloud his own experiences and conclusions.
For Pirsig, anything remotely smelling of any form of absolutist view in whatever guise became 'just more of the prison again' (ZMM, p129) and totally incongruent with his MOQ.

As dmb pointed out to you, he has presented you with ample evidence before, and so have I. To continue to insist on this congruency may make sense to you but it is incompatible with Pirsig's MOQ. It ends up becoming intellectually dishonest of you to maintain this position in the context of Pirsig's MOQ. And that is what we are discussing here. Not yours.

If you do insist I'd suggest you create your own q site.





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