From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 28 2003 - 18:53:39 GMT
Jonathan, Platt,
Platt said:
Question: Do you consider the following quotes from Pirsig to represent
"fundamentalism"
in a negative sense?
Matt:
I'm not sure about "fundamentalism," but I will say that I do consider it a
bad strategy for Pirsig to have used the word "absolute" as he does in the
passages you've pulled out (of which there are more). When I say "bad
strategy," I'm obviously using the pragmatist reading of Pirsig that
Jonathan and I seem to be advocating. The passages you've pulled out,
Platt, are good examples of why I'm beginning to believe there is a
fundamental ambiguity and tension in the message Pirsig is expounding.
When I read passages like these, I read them out as poor philosophical form
(for a pragmatist).
Platt said:
the MoQ provides a SPECIFIC framework
for solving particular problems. Because it is specific, Pirsig doesn't
hesitate to use "absolute" when the framework calls for it.
Matt:
In the pragmatist reading, the MoQ offers a specific framework for solving
particular problems, but it doesn't make any claims about being the
absolutely correct framework. Echoing Pirsig's "rectangular/polar
coordinates" analogy (Ch. 8), the MoQ only suggests that it is better for
some things then other specific frameworks. When the MoQ starts claiming
to be the correct metaframework for all contexts, that's when it ceases to
be in the pragmatist tradition.
Platt said:
As for the rule, "To every rule there is an exception" the question arises,
"Is there an exception to that rule, too?" (My memory is dim, but it
seems we've been around this block before.)
Matt:
Yeah, with me and probably others if you aren't thinking of me (Jonathan?).
The problem with you trying to catch Jonathan in a self-referential
paradox is that "To every rule there is an exception" isn't a rule, its a
truism. Its a helpful little tid-bit, a slogan, that reminds us that
things can be redescribed an infinite number of times in an infinite number
of ways. As pragmatists, we no longer think there is a correct, true,
ahistorical, essential description of things. Its descriptions, all the
way down. When we think this way, the truism simply tells us that our
rules are provisional, general, situational, contextual, historical,
contingent, etc.
Matt
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