From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 00:28:57 GMT
Platt,
Platt said:
Pardon my ignorance, but would you explain the difference between a
"metaphysical absolute" and a "non-metaphysical absolute."
Matt:
When we take absolute statements in a non-metaphysical way, it means that
"absolutes" are a convention of our language-game. When I say, "I
absolutely agree with you," in a normal conversation my conversation
partners take me to mean, "I strongly agree with you." The belief in
metaphysics means that the meanings in the dictionary either reflect a True
Vocabulary or not. When people who don't believe in metaphysics look at a
dictionary, they don't see definitions that accurately reflect reality,
they see conventional meanings, the way words are used (following
Wittgenstein).
So when you say, "For someone who doesn't take non-metaphysical absolutes
seriously you use them a lot which also shows that you consider them useful
even while you absolutely deny their usefulness," I'm saying that I don't
take my use of "absolutes" (which I'm having a hard time wrapping my head
around how you are using it; seems to me "absolutes" is becoming kind of
ubiquitous) as reflecting Reality. Within the language game I'm play
"aboslute" has an understood and generally agreed to meaning. This meaning
isn't to be confused with the Philosophical meaning that is deployed when
talking about metaphysics. To say that I fall into metaphysics when I use
regular old
absolutes-that-are-defined-by-Webster's-as-"use-with-intense-force" whether
I know it or not is, once again, to beg the question.
Matt said:
I'd like to point out that masochists would view sitting
on a hot stove as high quality. This is still a problem for Pirsig's
statement, "But that the quality is low is absolutely certain."
Platt said:
Maybe in an imaginary contextualized world you could find such a
masochist who would by definition enjoy sitting on a hot stove, or
imagine an alien who gets his energy from sitting thereon, but the
challenge is to find such a person in experiential reality.
Matt:
Actually, recontextualizations that use imaginary things like aliens is a
good technique in getting rid of universal, ahistoricalness. If its in the
realm of possiblity and is plausible, then the recontextualization might be
persuasive. For instance, for the alien who gets energy from sitting on
hot stoves to be plausible, it would have to be scientifically possible,
first and foremost. I can't comment on the alien because I'm not versed in
biochemistry.
However, all I need for my recontextualization is a real, live, unimaginary
masochist. You are basically implying that masochists are a figment of
psychologists minds, that none actually ever existed and that none could
actually ever exist.
Now _that's_ implausible.
Matt
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