From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 17 2002 - 05:12:03 BST
Platt,
PLATT:
I indeed do want to call the distinctions of subject-object, inner-outer,
mind-matter, nonsubstance-substance SOM.
MATT:
The only problem I see when you start calling all these things SOM is that
then you can say that we can't get rid of them, which I'm not prepared to say.
The appearance-reality distinction is really fairly simple (relative to my
already understanding it, I suppose ;-). You believe in this distinction
if you think that there is something real behind appearances. For
instance, Plato believed that the Realm of Forms was real and the Realm of
the Senses were simply appearances. Kant believed that objects had a real
essence and that this essence could be falsely represented (Locke believed
this, too). Christians, too, in a way, believe in this distinction insofar
as they believe that Heaven is real and Earth is simply a passing stage.
Mystics believe in this distinction when they say that language obscures
reality. You believe in it when you think there is something else,
something more real, lurking behind whatever it is now that you are sensing
or experiencing.
In partictular, the quote you pulled out from Pirsig in Ch 8 is very
revealing. Most of that paragraph sounds like Pirsig is discarding a
correspondence theory of truth. He sounds like an antiessentialist when he
says, "One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual explanation of
things with the knowledge that if the past is any guide to the future this
explanation must be taken provisionally; as useful until something better
comes along." However, two lines before, he sounds like a confused
metaphysician: "But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate
reality then it becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist."
This, I take, to be Pirsig's hubris. He believed he could succeed where
Plato failed. He believed he could encapsulate the Good. Pirsig thinks he
can have an ultimate reality and not expect people to want to correspond to
it. He says, one line before that, "If subjects and objects are held to be
the ultimate reality then we're permitted only one construction of
things--that which corresponds to the "objective" world--and all other
constructions are unreal." Well, my question is, what good is an ultimate
reality if you can't correspond to it? If Quality becomes the ultimate
reality then it tempts people to come along and say, "Hey, the MoQ is
universal and ahistorical." But then, in the same breath, Pirsig trys to
say that "No, it isn't." By retaining metaphysics, he's retaining SOM.
Pirsig says it, we say it, Rorty says it. The point is that Pirsig doesn't
have to retain metaphysics or SOM, Nietzsche and the pragmatists show him a
way out. They show him a way in which he can retain the first and third
quote without the need for the second. In fact, to be more precise, the
third quote should read: "If we retain an ultimate reality then we're
permitted only one construction of thing."
PLATT:
I don't see anything revolutionary in what he says here. He's not the first
to object to the correspondence theory of truth.
MATT:
I never said anything Rorty says is revolutionary. Rorty is an avowed
syncretist. Unlike some on this list, I don't think a person's originality
has anything to do with what he says. I take it to be more important to
find more people that sound the same to gather more support, rather than
finding someone that sounds like no one else.
Along those lines, Rorty does talk about morals and values in his later
writings. He would have to if he would have anything to say about
politics. I'm not sure about Davidson, however.
Whenever someone asks me what this or that thinker has to say about morals
or values, as if this has something to do with the acuity of the ideas we
are discussing, I take this to be a defensive attitude. When we move to
topics that are related to morals and values, then maybe what Rorty says
will have an affect. But when discussing the appearance-reality
distinction, I fail to see how what Rorty has to say about morals has
anything to do with it. It would be like dismissing what I have to say
about logic because I don't believe in Heaven.
Of course, now I sound defensive, but I find that alot of this kind of
posturing goes on here. Just because a thinker is not as original as
Pirsig supposedly is or doesn't make morals central to reality like Pirsig
does doesn't make a thinker easily dismissed. In other words, its a bit of
a rhetorical shine job, tarnishing a person's image because he isn't Pirsig.
But, enough of that. Rorty does talk about morals. Specifically, he gets
rid of the morality-prudence distinction that we find in Kant. But that's
a whole lot of somethin' that I haven't connected with Pirsig yet, so I
hesitate to go into it.
PLATT: "Isn't the capacity for language something man has and animals do not?"
Rorty and Davidson would say that language is something man uses that
animals do not use. To say that humans have a capacity for language that
animals do not have would make humans a distinct kind. It would be to say
that humans have an essence. Pragmatists want the fact that humans use
language to be an empirical claim, one that can be verified through
experience, rather than a metaphysical claim.
PLATT: "When you say "tools with which we cope with reality" aren't you
bringing back the mirror that you want to discard?"
No, I don't think so. You see, the mirror metaphor says that language's
purpose is to reflect reality. When we get rid of this metaphor,
language's purpose is anything we want it to be. "Coping with reality" can
mean all sorts of things, from describing a tiger so that when people see
something matching that description they have time to run in fear to
writing poetry, purging yourself of your most inner thoughts.
As for me making a suggestion about another first cut of reality, I don't
indulge in making metaphysical distinctions. That's not to say that I
don't like the one that Pirsig made. Its very interesting and does well in
describing many activities. I just refrain from metaphysical activity in
general.
Matt
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