From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 18:01:00 BST
Hi Matt, Scott:
Matt:
> 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.
Thanks for the explanation. What threw me off was the idea that there's
a reality "behind" experience. I can see how people get that idea. But if
you assume as I do that there's no division, no "behind" to what is
directly sensed or experienced, then the appearance-reality division
doesn't enter the picture until later when you start to abstract things like
observer-observed, perceiver-perception, etc., in other words, drop into
subject-object (SOM) conceptualizing.
> 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."
Not in my book. As Scott pointed out, because Quality which is
ultimate reality can't be defined in the MOQ , there can be many
constructions of the "thing." What matters is the quality or excellence of
the construction.
> 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.
We really part company here. Without individual originality there's no
betterment of the human condition. "Someone has to be first." Give me
the leaders, the inventors, the creators over the crowd followers, the
herd, the collective any day.
> 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.
Can you suggest where I might find Rorty's views on morality? I'd like to
compare his thoughts to Pirsig's.
> 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.
Well, maybe I just don't get it, but "describing a tiger" sounds to me like
"holding up a mirror to a tiger." Mirroring a real tiger by using language
to describe a general, abstract, imaginary tiger can certainly be thought
of as a means to "cope" when a real tiger causes someone a "low
Quality" experience. Purging the mirror image in that case might prove
fatal. The time for writing nonmirror poetry is after you escape the
nonmirror tiger's jaws :-)
Platt
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