[MD] Taking words Seriously

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Matt: 
...But that means that you've very recently given up a hobby [accusing Pirsig of Platonism] that you had for ten years.



Matt replied:
I think you've been reading me very poorly for a little while then, because my shift happened some time ago.  Perhaps you're confusing assertion that Pirsig _is_ a Platonist or whatever (indeed, if ever I actually did, which I'm not sure I'd concede) with attempting to understand how a piece of philosophy is or is not caught up in certain kinds of assumptions and consequences.  Call that disingenuous if you want, but it's a sensitivity I wished you had.  I haven't stated a case about Pirsig in _years_.  ..That makes a lot of sense about how you misread me, and Steve, too.  Your style of apprehension is like that of Elizabethan era Courtier Politics: you see subterfuge, betrayal, treason, and deceptive promises everywhere. ...



dmb says:
You are protesting way too much. I don't know what "some time ago" means to you, but I can show you an example of what I'm complaining about, one that you posted this month and in this thread. You said to Steve, "I've always had difficulty seeing how the direct/indirect distinction doesn't reproduce the problems of the experience/reality distinction. " This is not a direct claim that the DQ/sq distinction simply is Platonism. It's more cautious and tentative than that, but it amounts to the same thing. And there are other recent examples. Maybe you don't call that a "stated case" and maybe you don't equate the appearance/reality distinction with Platonism, but this is what I'm talking about. You said that to Steve in this same thread about two weeks ago. 
I really don't think it's paranoid to see deception here. It's not crazy to suspect that you're being less than honest. At the very least, you have to admit that the gap between your claim and the actual record raises certain questions.