From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 13 2002 - 00:02:26 GMT
Dear Wim N.,
We've gotten ourselves into another redescription battle. Here's how the
lines are drawn:
WIM:
"The conventional definition of metaphysics you use as proof that metaphysics
implies this idea of a reality beyond experience is not the only possible
definition..."
[and]
"Using the word 'metaphysics' [while using "Pirsig's" definition] doesn't
imply that one believes there is an 'ultimate reality' (apart from direct
experience). It only implies a question whether there is."
MATT (old):
If you rework the definition of metaphysics to mean something
other than the appearance-reality distinction, I would probably reply that
it doesn't really help to hold onto "metaphysics" as the title of what
you're doing. For instance, when you say, "The MoQ substitutes this with
'experience/value is the only ultimate reality'", I would say that by doing
that you are no longer doing metaphysics. You could more properly call it
'biology,' 'chemistry,' 'anthropology,' 'sociology,' etc., depending on
what part of reality you are talking about. Because, once you delete the
"ultimate" from the description of metaphysics, you start treading on other
traditions of knowledge that have already set up some of there own
respected and tried and true tested "methods" with which they handle these
parts of reality.
MATT (new):
Wim is claiming that Pirsig is using a definition of metaphysics that does
not imply an appearance-reality distinction. On this scholastic question,
I would reply that we can quote Pirsig claiming there's an ultimate
reality. This casts into doubt whether he really believes that metaphysics
is simply about the questions. I'm prepared to acquiesce for the moment on
the scholastic question, however. Wim also claims that, according to him
(and possibly to Pirsig), metaphysics "only implies a question whether
there is [an ultimate reality]." My reply: A) Redefinitions are prompted
by those who see an ailing thing and want to rehabilitate it. You see
metaphysics floundering under its tradtional definition so you redefine it,
thus saving it. Having anticipated this line of reasoning, I've already
questioned why we need to save metaphysics. I'm claiming that we could get
along better without it. For instance, I think it would be better to
simply call the question of whether there is an ultimate reality a
philosophical question, rather than a metaphysical question. It may be
appropriate, after having read your Western or Eastern philosophical
tradition, to question whether we need to be asking those types of
questions. In other words, after reading Plato through Kant, you may ask
yourself, "Do we really need a notion of 'ultimate reality'?" If we call
questions about ultimate reality metaphysics (rather than using Wim's
definition as questions about whether there is an ultimate reality) we can
call what we are trying to get rid of a name, namely metaphysics.
and B) Some of those questions in Pirsig's definition do presuppose an
appearance-reality distinction. For instance, "If [reality can be reduced
to a single substance], is it essentially spiritual or material?", and "Is
the universe intelligible and orderly or incomprehensible and chaotic?" In
these questions, you are asked to choose one side or the other with the
consequence being that your intuitions of the side you didn't choose are
mere appearance compared to the reality of the side you chose. If you
chose material, then all intuitions of God are illusory. If you chose
chaotic, then all intelligibleness is really posited by you.
WIM:
Answering metaphysical questions does not directly solve practical problems,
but it may create 'solid ground upon which such a [theoretical] structure
can be constructed' ('Lila' chapter 5) that CAN solve practical problems.
'Solid ground' should be understood as 'a language fit to deal with these
problems'.
...
MATT:
I see here a weird convolution of foundational and Kuhnian philosophy.
I'll simply contrast your conception of metaphysics with my Rortyan
conception of philosophy:
Following Sellars, philosophy is the attempt to see how things, in the
boadest sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest sense of the
term. Following Locke, a philosopher should be seen as an "underlaborer,"
clearing away the conceptual debris to make room for new apparatus.
Now, from what I understand of your conception, you'd mainly agree with my
definition. What I reject is the notion that what philosophy does somehow
"holds up" or provides "solid ground" for our conceptual machinery which
can then perform practical functions. This seems to me to imply that our
practical everyday work would fall apart without solid ground. This is
foundationalism and its part of what Rorty and I deny we need. An example
of why we deny this:
WIM:
Also it is difficult to cure 'diseases' and to prevent 'pollution' if you
are not very clear about the 'reality' you are describing with those words.
If anyone needs metaphysics to clarify their language before they can start
the real practical work, it is scientists.
MATT:
By this token, you seem to be claiming that if scientists had clearer
conceptual machinery, they would do there jobs better. Well, if you took a
survey of top notch scientists and bottom rung scientists, I think you'd
find a wide ranging opinion on what they are actually doing (their
conceptual machinery). However, I don't think you'd find a correlation
between one type of conceptual machinery and top notch scientists and
another type of conceptual machinery and bottom rung scientists. Now,
naturally, if you claim that all you were talking about for scientists was
an understanding of what pollution is, then I would claim that this is
either work done in climatology, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, or
maybe, even, philosophy. In other words, it comes down to our differences
about the definition of philosophy and metaphysics. I would claim that
most of the conceptual underlaboring done in philosophy has very little to
do with what a climatologist does on a regular basis, though a Kuhnian
revolution from one paradigm of normal science to another, wherever it
originates from, would. I don't think it matters if a scientist follows
Kuhn and Feyerabend or Aristotle and Descartes when she's doing normal science.
By saying this, I'm not claiming that Pirsig was wrong in ZMM when he
claimed that "care" is something that has been lost by our continued use of
SOM (which, I interpret as an appearance-reality distinction, rather than a
mind-matter distinction). But while saying this, I don't think Pirsig's
claiming that science would be done differently, rather he's claiming it
might be done better.
About my use of "metaphysician," I don't see a good reason to toss it out
as the word to designate believers in an Ultimate Reality. I've already
stated my reasons for leaving what you might want to call metaphysics as
philosophy.
Lastly, you had words about correspondence, but I have no idea what you
mean by a "correspondence between patterns of values" that circumvents
representationalism. If you mean "correspondence" as in something like
"recognition," as in "recognition of patterns," then, yeah, sure. But as
you already noted, we can't recognize, in this sense, Dynamic Quality.
People are going to reply, "No, silly. You experience DQ." This leads to
the paradox of the MoQ: it conceptualizes DQ as the ultimate reality,
pulling us forward, closer and closer to, well, ultimate reality. In a
normal self-correcting system (such as how many scientists typically
conceive of what they are doing), the system is improved as it moves closer
and closer towards the Truth. In the acknowledged contradiction that is
the MoQ, "ultimate" reality is right there moving us closer to itself, with
the "secondary" reality all around us, too. But static patterns are as
real as DQ. If they aren't, then the MoQ certainly does have an
appearance-reality distinction and is answerable to all of the attacks
Pirsig himself makes on the distinction. So we have two things that are
all around us, one "secondary," the other "ultimate," both equal and not,
at the same time. Around and 'round we go. The question I'm going to
leave with is the same question I just left in a post responding to Scott:
why do we need contradictory conceptual machinery when there is a
non-contradictory alternative?
Matt
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