From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 15:42:44 GMT
Hi Matt:
> I've unfortunately been too busy lately to respond to points in a timely
> fashion, particularly if the demand some depth. I'll have to be brief, but
> hopefully explanatory.
Depth is not per se better than brevity. It's clarity that counts most,
something many postmodernists like Rorty haven't always put a high value
on.:-)
> Platt said:
> Yes. Again, a non-linguistic "sense" or preconceptual awareness is an
> "apprehension" rather than a linguistic-based, symbolic-dependent
> "comprehension." I would argue, as does Mortimer Adler and other
> philosophers, that such sense is a "special kind of knowing that eschews
> all conceptual, linguistic ingredients."
> Matt:
> The argument between Platt and I is based on intuitions. Platt has an
> intuition that there exists a "non-linguistic 'sense' or preconceptual
> awareness" of a mind-independent reality. I have an intuition that we
> can't get behind our language. Now, the question is: how do we adjudicate
> between these two intuitions? Is mine wrong? Is Platt's wrong?
No. What you call "an intuition" is "a conception." Intuitions are first-
order reality; language is second-order reality pointing to the first. No
matter how hard you try to verbalize it, you cannot put into words what
chocolate tastes like so that another person will taste it from listening to
your words. (Refer to previous posts.) Love, laughter, beauty, redness,
pain, happiness, etc. are all intimate, personal and inexplicable
perceptual experiences called "qualia" that occur prior to language.
Pirsig's hot stove example illustrates the point: Quality is a
preconceptual, prelinguistic reality. Words come after the direct
experience, symbolizing the experience but in no way the experience
itself. As pragmatist William James wrote:
"A bill of fare with one real egg on it instead of the word 'egg' might be
an inadequate meal, but it would at least be a commencement of
reality."
> The
> realist position (that Platt represents for the moment) is that, yes, I'm
> wrong. Because how could we have two different intuitions if we are both
> directly hooked up to the same mind-independent reality?
No. A realist, mind-independent reality is not my position. I tend more to
idealism than realism. I don't advocate or subscribe to an appearance-
reality split. I believe the Dynamic-static Quality split is much better
because of its explanatory power.
>The pragmatist
> position is that we both do have these intuitions, but intuitions do not
> arise out of a "special kind of knowing," but rather from the
> language-games we've been inculcated to, the culture we've grown up in, our
> contingent biographies.
I know. To postmodernists, society dominants everything, that we're all
slaves to social values. That's scary.
> The pragmatist tells us that we can change the
> kind of intuitions we have by changing the types of metaphors we use,
> changing the language games we play. She tells us that we don't have to
> account for all our intuitions. Rather, we should suppress those
> intuitions which are troublesome (like the one that tells us that there is
> a reality "out there" that we can have a "special kind of knowingness" of).
Troublesome? How troublesome? Why change? Is there some social
agenda "pragmatists" have? I fear so. Pirsig posted a warning:
"But the Metaphysics of Quality states that practicality is a social
pattern of good. It is immoral for truth to be subordinated to social
values since that is a lower form of evolution devouring a higher one.
"The idea that satisfaction alone is the test of anything is very
dangerous, according to the Metaphysics of Quality. There are different
kinds of satisfaction and some of them are moral nightmares. The
Holocaust produced a satisfaction among Nazis. That was quality for
them. They considered it to be practical. But it was a quality dictated by
low level static social and biological patterns whose overall purpose was
to retard the evolution of truth and. Dynamic Quality. James would
probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use his pragmatism
just as freely as anyone else, but Phaedrus didn't see anything that
would prevent it. But he thought that the Metaphysics of Quality's
classification of static patterns of good prevents this kind of
debasement." (Lila, Chap. 29)
I'm not accusing Rorty or other postmodernists of being Nazis at heart.
But preserving individual freedom--the right of a person to live for his own
sake and not the sake of others--doesn't appear to be their highest
priority.
> The trouble with Platt's argument is that it begs the important question:
> should we continue on with the appearance-reality distinction. Should we
> continue on having intuitions of a real reality behind our language.
You make "appearance" and "language" synonymous. They are not. I
do make a distinction between language and reality just as I make a
distinction between before and after. But I make no distinction between
experience and reality. Experience=reality=Quality.
> Platt
> argues like I don't understand what a pre-linguistic intuition is, or that
> I must be pretty ignorant if I don't sense "That's a good dog" before
> "That's Basset Hound."
Not my argument. Ignorance has nothing to do with your sense of
Quality. It comes with the territory of being alive, of being a presence in
the world, of valuing your own existence.
> The dog example is probably the best
> counter-example against Platt. I bet there are a lot of people that will
> have the "That's a Basset Hound" intuition before they have the "That's a
> good dog" intuition, or any number of other intuitions in any order in an
> infinite number of combinations. If you argue that "That's a Basset Hound"
> isn't an intuition and "That's a good dog" is, then you've lossed me
> because I don't see the difference between the two (hence, our two
> different intuitions from before).
Again, we're both talking about conceptions after perceptions, second
order realities of "good dog" and "Basset Hound." My point is not how
you verbalize your intuition, but that whatever your intuition might be,
you automatically, without thinking about it or verbalizing it, sense it as
Quality--good, bad or indifferent.
> So, I understand what you're saying, Platt, I just don't see the utility of
> it.
Here's where we really part company. "Utility" isn't my bottom line.
There are a lot more important values in my life besides "usefulness" or
"practicality." Is "utility" you major criteria for discerning value? Pray
tell, what is the "utility" of Rorty's philosophy?
Understand I'm not denying that society, culture, history, language and
all those social values have an influence on our individual experiences.
We all get a pair of perceptual spectacles imposed on us by those
values as Pirsig points out. There's a lot of truth in "We see what we
want to see." Nor do I deny that much of our experiences are influenced
by inherited characteristics as claimed by the sociobiologists. What I
do deny is the all-pervasivenes of language in determining experience,
as Rorty appears to claim. Language is one thing, but not the only thing.
But, I could be wrong.
Platt
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