[MD] MOQ and Gödel's incompleteness theorems

[david buchanan]

Tuukka said to dmb:

...What even are these "camps" that, apparently, contain sworn defendants of this kind? Who belong to these camps? I'm quite sure that no one in their right mind does.

dmb says:
Pirsig and William James both invoke Coleridge to describe the rival camps. On that account, everyone is either a Platonist (rationalism) or an Aristotelain (empiricism), although Pirsig and James both think that Protagoras (Man is the measure) represents empiricism much better than Aristotle. As you may recall, the dramatic structure of ZAMM is centered around the conflict between the Aristotelian narrator and Phaedrus, the Platonist.  
Tuukka said:
...They are only logical systems, and their notion of truth would remain their notion of truth even if the system would describe no empirically observable phenomenon, which, of course, is rather unlikely.

dmb says:
Logical systems that describe no empirically observable phenomena is a good way to describe rationalism. 
 
Tuukka said:
You seem to be claiming that pragmatists require a meta-system, which would dictate, which systems have a "true" notion of truth, and which systems have a "false" notion of truth. But if pragmatists did this, they would only be begging the question - for what is the notion of truth, that the meta-system uses, based on? On "working well"? What does that mean? That "true" notions of truth have Quality?

dmb says:
Well, pragmatism is supposed to be a method for settling metaphysical disputes and it is offered as a mediator between the two rival camps. It entails a criticism of philosophical ways of thinking that reaches back to Plato's day. In that sense it is "meta". But the pragmatist does not pretend to stand outside or above the systems being analyzed.