Glove,Walter, David, Mary, other 99%ers
I,like Ken, have been following the 99% thread "gnawing my thumb and trying to
stay out of this" because the interest level is high and the discord low. But
the following finally flip my trigger to try to move on another % point.
> [Walter]
> Although I think he's a pragmatic realist he could also be a pragmatic idealist.
> [David Buchanan]:
> I see what you're getting at with the various descriptions of DQ, but it only seems too broad because metaphysics itself it so broad. There are at least three branches of philsophy within metaphysics; cosmology, epistemology and ontology.
> [Glove:]
> My point would be that cosmology, epistomolgy and ontology are all static
> quality concepts,
> [Walter]
> I agree with David that this is a distinction between cosmology and epistemology.
Epistemology and Pragmatism.
Toward the end of Lila (362-366) Pirsig compares MOQ with the pragmatism of
James and concludes: (p366)
"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth
century American Philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism,
which says the test of the true is the good. It adds that this good is not a
social code or some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience"
In order to evaluate this claim and to understand just what pragmatism is I
read and am now hilighting: The American Evasion of philosophy Genealogy of
Pragmatism -Cornel West-1989 University of Wisconsin Press. Some of the points
of the book are:
1 Pragmatism was and is American in origin, and is an evasion of the European
derived epistemology centered philosophies.
2. Pragmatism is preceded by the thoughts of Emerson, named by Peirce, made
legit by James and Dewey, and is currently undergoing a revival through the
work of Rorty, Quine, and West. (and we might add, most importantly, Pirsig)
3. West says, " ..American pragmatism-is neither a panacea for our ills nor a
solution to our problems. Rather, it should be an attempt to reinvigorate our
moribund academic life, our lethargic political life, our decadent cultural
life, and our chaotic personal lives for the flowering of many-sided
personalities and the flourishing of more democracy and freedom."
The evasion of epistemology posed by John Dewey in 1918 was put like this:
" There is, I think, another alternative, another way out. Put badly, it is to
deny that philosophy is in any sense whatever a form of knowledge. It is to
say that we should ..recognize that philosophy is a form of desire, of effort
at action -a love, of wisdom;"
West goes on to state: For Dewey, philosophy is a mode not of knowledge but of
wisdom, And wisdom is conviction about values, a choice to do something, a
preference for this rather than that form of living. Wisdom involves
discriminating judgments and a desired future. It presupposes some grasp of
conditions and consequences, yet it has no special access to them. Rather the
method of access must be scrutinized in order to decide which ones are most
reliable for the task at hand. In this way, Dewey does not devalue knowledge
but only situates it in human experience.
So what's the point? This forum has been going on for a couple of years and individual
inquiry much much longer but it seems that most of the discussion is still
focused around
scrutinizing the "method of access .. in order to decide [if this one is the]
most reliable for the task at hand" And a great deal of the discussion seem to
have been epistemological in nature.
If MoQ is an extension of pragmatism (which tries to evade epistemology) and
I'm comfortable that is is: Then should we not be moving on to the other 99%
of the issue with questions like:
What "conditions and consequences" we should be grasping?
What are the "desired future(s)?
What are the "something's" to do?
And... can MOQ help us do them?
To the those who will say " But we haven't got a clear picture of the basics"
I would offer this comfort. MoQ corresponds to James's theory of truth: "truth
is not simply an explanation of how we arrive at truth; it also provides an
account of what truth is. This account locates truth at the end of a verifying
process, though it remains contingent and revisable."
Dave Thomas
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:54 BST