Dear Puzzled, Platt,Marco & all
PzEph
> Maybe Iris Murdoch was
> another who had noticed this: she too talks about James occasionally.
3WD
Can't comment on Murdock as I've read none of her work. She's on my
list, but I wonder is it because she has been most often referred to by
our semi-resident, perennial MoQ basher, and siliceous skeptic, Struan
Hellier that she's not come to the top.?
> ELEPHANT:
> Yes, right on indeed - but one question. What is the "pragmatic mode of
> selection" by which the idea that "truth is a species of good" is reached?
3WD
Well I think James would insist on starting with the "facts" the best
empirical information you could get. And the like you said, "it's
necessary to be pretty tenacious with a hypothesis (otherwise you can't
uncover any supporting 'evidence'), but not too tenacious (otherwise you've
given up on needing 'evidence' at all)" I don't think he would be
averse to Popper's falsablity concept nor to the MoQ static levels and
hierarchies. But in the end pragmatic selection hinges on answering a
single question "What concrete difference will (this hypothesis) being
true make
in one's actual life?" If no difference the question needs to be unasked
or both paths are the same. If not the choice should be obvision the
path that make a good concrete difference.
Now I can see how Pirsig's static levels and hierarchy allows a series
of interlocking pragmatic questions to be formed such as:
"What concrete difference will (this hypothesis) being true make
in one's inorganic values?"
"What concrete difference will (this hypothesis) being true make
in one's biological values?"
"What concrete difference will (this hypothesis) being true make
in one's social values?"
"What concrete difference will (this hypothesis) being true make
in one's intellectual values?"
Which might make the investigation more rigorous, but ultimately more
complicated too.
Just for yucks that the hypothesis "that human activities effect global
climate" mentally gather all the empirical " facts" and run it through
this filter and see how many fuses blow.
ELEPHANT
> - does this mean that philosophy is a different (higher) kind of enquiry
> than the everyday one? If so, does it support Plato's point about there
> being another (higher) kind of truth that might result from this other
> (higher) kind of enquiry?
3WD.
I think I'll let Platt help answer that:
> “Reality consists of a conscious field plus its object as felt or
> thought, plus an attitude towards the object plus a sense of self to
> whom the ATTITUDE belongs. Such is a full fact of the kind to which
> all realities whatsoever must belong. That unsharable feeling
> each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny as he
> privately feels it rolling out on fortune’s wheel may be disparaged
> for its egotism, may be sneered at as unscientific, but is the one
> thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality, and any
> would be existent that should lack such a feeling would be a piece
> of reality only half made up.”
Thanks Platt. He simply means philosophy in an intellectual pursuit and
should not be socially controlled. But , in the series about James and
in other places, most notable in the ZMM account of Phaedrus researching
to attack the chairman, Pirsig acknowledges that he sometimes gets an
ATTITUDE (my emphasis above) . The problem with the rhetorical approach
is that often that which is shouted the loudest overshadows the subtle.
In this case were not philosophy integrated into the social fabric it
would have no practical effect. Which is basically the current state of affairs.
MARCO
> Why is Pragmatism considered minor?
3WD
James has a word for it "attend" Reality is only what we attend to.
Interesting isn't it that over 100 years ago James and European
philosophers carried on a running commentary and critque of each others
work with little more than letters and published work. And at that time
there where active "pragmatic" societies in many countries in Europe.
Now with almost instant global communication the only thing that gets
communicated is the condom size of Madonna latest lover!
3WD
PS: Platt, I've just made one pass through a compendium of James work
and now comes the hard part of reading it again for content. So the
investigation continues.
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