3WD, Bo, Elliot and All:
The topic of Pragmatism came up in the "a Quality Event" thread. I've
changed the subject line for obvious reasons. Perhaps you're already aware
of the dangers inherent with the "common sense" notions of pragmatism, but
thought it worth pointing out anyway. As Wilber and Pirsig both warn, its
wrong to think that pragmatism is just a matter of "whatever works" or of
mere practicality, which is just a social good.
"Even James doesn't penetrate into this primordial state with much
profundity, and so his radical empiricism degenerated very rapidly into
sensory phenomenalism, which collapses into Right Hand (exterior/objective)
empiricism and pragmatism - an extremely disappointing development, American
to the core. Although this certainly doesn't detract from the amazing first
step he took." Ken Wilber's BRIEF HISTORY pages 235-6
"James had tried to make his pragmatism popular by getting it elected on the
coattails of practicality. He was always eager to use such expression as
"cash-value" and "results" and "profits", in order to make pragmatism
intelligible to "the man in the street", but this got James into hot water.
Pragmatism was attacked by ritics as an attempt to prostitute truth to the
values of the marketplace. James was furious at this misunderstanding and
fought hard to correct the misinterpretation, but he never really overcame
the attack." Lila page 364.
Pirsig goes on to explain that the MOQ rescues pragmatism by making clear
the differences between social satisfaction, which can be a moral nightmare,
and the higher values. (Intellectual and Dynamic)
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:15 BST