[MD] Taking off the glasses?

[david buchanan]

Steve said perhaps this was just an off-hand literary flourish that we ought not take too seriously:



"...The same is true of subjects and objects. The culture in which we live hands us a set of intellectual glasses to interpret experience with, and the concept of the primacy of subjects and objects is built right into these glasses. If someone sees things through a somewhat different set of glasses or, God help him, takes his glasses off, the natural tendency of those who still have their glasses on is to regard his statements as somewhat weird, if not actually crazy. But he isn't. The idea that values create objects gets less and less weird as you get used to it. Modern physics on the other hand gets more and more weird as you get into it and indications are that this weirdness will increase. In either case, however, weirdness isn't the test of truth. As Einstein said, common sense-non-weirdness-is just a bundle of prejudices acquired before the age of eighteen. The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and economy of explanation. The Metaphysics of Quality satisfies these."


Steve said:
The question I have about this quote is what would it mean for someone to take his glasses off? .., how should we understand what taking one’s glasses off means here? I don’t think there is a way to take off the cultural glasses by finding the right metaphysics since intellectual patterns depend on social patterns for their existence. ...I don’t think we should think of the MOQ as helping us to see more _clearly_.  ...But then again, I don't know what to make of seeing without the glasses when we have denied the SOM picture of a single truth... 


dmb says:
Since the glasses are intellectual and represent a way to interpret experience, then taking the glasses off leaves you with DQ, with pre-intellectual, uninterpreted experience. He tells us quite a lot about this pre-intellectual experience elsewhere, of course, but this passage is about the MOQ as an alternative set of glasses, an alternative way to interpret experience that passes "the tests of truth", which "are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and economy of explanation". 

The MOQ's distinction between concepts and reality (sq&DQ) shows up here again and so Steve and Matt are going to be confounded. It only goes to show that you misunderstanding of the MOQ's most basic distinction has very far-reaching consequences. It will continue to cause trouble everywhere you go, no matter what facet or feature you try to explore.