Elephant to 3WD:
I'll go to the archives and look out for Struan's postings. Not sure why
someone who had understood Murdoch would be so ungracious as to be a
"MOQ-basher". What kind of sceptic is a "siliceous skeptic"?
Also, I'm not sure that you've yet answered my question 'What is the
"pragmatic mode of selection" by which the idea that "truth is a species of
good" is reached?' Maybe I'm being dim. I'll go read some James.
Pzeph
> From: 3rdWavedave <dlt44@ipa.net>
> Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 17:18:32 -0600
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: Re: MD Dewey/James2
>
> 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.
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:51 BST