From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 18:58:56 GMT
DMB,
DMB said:
He's only saying that metaphors are NEITHER facts NOR
lies. He's saying that the believer and the atheist are equally mistaken
about what a metaphor is. They are both taking the metaphor literally, which
is to misunderstand metaphor as a form of expression.
Matt:
Yeah, I believe that's what I said when I said,
"he's saying that believers think that metaphors have cognitive meaning
(and are therefore important) and atheists don't think they have cognitive
meaning (and are therefore unimportant). If what he means is something
along the Davidsonian lines I drew above (which I think he might given "God
is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual
thought."), then Campbell would say the fact/lie distinction should be
blurred. Metaphors don't have cognitive meaning, but that doesn't mean they
aren't important."
DMB said:
Huh? How in the world did you get from metaphors to metaphysics in a single
sentence? Surely, they are two entirely different things.
Matt:
Like this,
Erin said:
Okay I am not completely understanding the idea
that metaphysics suggests once you possess a word
you are at the end of a quest.
In thinking about something Campbell said about
metaphors
Matt:
Ya' see, I was entering into dialogue with Erin, and she made a loose
connection between Campbell on metaphors and pragmatists on metaphysics. I
tried to add something. Apparently, I've failed again. Failed, failed,
failed.
DMB said:
If "Quality" and "Quality is reality" are metaphorical expressions, then
they can't rightly be taken literally and so there is no "metaphysical chess
piece". There is no reason to resist it, because it doesn't exist except in
the minds of those who misunderstand it as a fact or a lie. It is neither,
so there's no problem. See?
Matt:
Rrrrrright. Once again, that's why I said,
"Pragmatists, as I've been presenting them, have no problem with the
metaphor "Quality." They do have a problem with the degenerate activity
that Pirsig calls the Metaphysics of Quality. "Quality is reality" is a
metaphor because it doesn't make any literal sense. As soon as we
literalize it, we hypostatize it as a metaphysical chess piece. I've been
urging that we follow the pragmatists in resisting this."
I'd try and write it slower, but it only depends on how fast you read it.
What I said above was to imply that I think people are trying to literalize
Quality when they create a Metaphysics of Quality. Which you yourself have
said is bad, though, presumably you don't think the MoQ literalizes
Quality. Obviously, from a close reading of what I have said, I apparently
do think it does.
But let me draw the lines clearer:
DMB doesn't think the MoQ literalizes Quality.
Matt does think the MoQ literalizes Quality.
Matt
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