From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 06 2003 - 04:46:48 GMT
DMB,
Who wants victory? Not me...
DMB said:
No it doesn't. You have confused "stop" with "complete". Not that I'm buying
into this dilemma, but if the aim of dialectic is to reach a consensus and
then a consensus is reach, then the aim has been realized and the work is
done. Circumventing the issues, shifting the debate or retreating into one's
own vocabulary would STOP a conversation before anything has been achieved
or resolved. By analogy, a huge wreck would stop the auot race while
reaching the finish line completes the race. The difference couldn't be
bigger.
Matt:
I enjoyed your distinction, but in the case of consensus, I don't see a
difference between stopping and completing. Circumvention, as is the case
in our conversation, doesn't stop anything. If one of us were to die
unexpectedly (by analogy, there were a huge auto wreck), then there would
be an end without consensus and here the distinction makes a point.
DMB said:
Outrageous. Circumventing the issues, changing the grounds of the debate,
interpreting philosophy as a dream and a joke. This is what genius does? Oh,
please. The whole thrust of this approach is outrageous. It looks like an
elaborate rationalization to give yourself permission to be irrational, to
compare apples with oranges, to change the subject whenever the challenge
seems too duanting, to ignore the things that are contrary to what you'd
like to believe.
Matt:
This I find interesting. Earlier, you basically claimed for Pirsig the
right strongly misread texts ("The truth behind these 'misreading' games is
already included in Pirsig's work") but deny its use for us. Now you
assert that its all irrational. Well, in a way you're right. You brought
up chess earlier and I thinks that's a good example of Kuhn calls "normal
science." You play by the rules, solve problems. But then, revolutionary
science sometimes occurs. It happens when too many "platypi" or anomalies
occur. Everythings upset and we need to change the rules (think Ptolemaic
to Copernican astonomy). It can also occur if some "genius" figures out a
better game to play. For instance, I bet the inventors of American
football were shunned by the rugby players. The rugby purists probably
called the new football game "irrational" as it was not playing by the real
rules. Until the new football players started to assert that theirs was
not rugby, but was a different game, but better, the lines became drawn and
you had to make up your mind which one was better. In America, its been
football.
The same thing happened to Ptolemy. Newton came along and invented a
better game. The same thing then happened to Newton. Einstein came along
and invented a better game. At first these new games might have seemed
"irrational" to those working in the old paradigm. But people started to
catch on, see Quality in the new one, see that it was better. The same
thing probably happened to chess when they were deciding whether to let the
King castle with the rook. I bet there were purists going, "No, no, for
the love of God it'll destroy the game!!!" But then there were others who
thought that castling added a new level of strategy, made chess more
interesting, more fun. In fact, now that you've suggested it, maybe
letting the rooks move diagonally would be more fun ....
DMB:
I don't mean to pick on you, Matt. In fact, I'm jumping on
your case so hard because I can see that you're smart and well read. I
expect more from guys like you. I realize the tone of this response is not
very sweet, but its about the best I can do. When I see this kind of
equivocation and evasion from a serious student like yourself it pisses me
off to no end.
Matt:
No problem at all. Most of your criticisms were enuciated by Platt during
the first posting of "Confessions." All I can say is that the teachers
always get pissed off when the students start to "figure" things out and
get a mind of their own. They start saying things, "No, no. You've got it
all wrong. That's not what I've taught you." And the students, "Yeah,
you're right, its not. But this way is better." Its what Socrates was
trying to tell the Sophists. Its what Aristotle told Plato. Its what
Copernicus would've told somebody had he published before he died. Its
what Kepler told Brahe. Its what Galileo told the Pope. Its what Kant
told Hume. Its what Hegel told Kant. Its what Marx told Hegel. Its what
Boas told Tylor. Its what Jung told Freud.
Its what Pirsig told McKeon.
Matt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jan 06 2003 - 04:41:09 GMT