From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Sun Feb 13 2005 - 03:50:18 GMT
DMB,
dmb chimes in:
Let you know? Dude, he already addressed your objections. You claimed that
empirical experience means sensory experience within philosophy and that any
other notion was confusing. In response, Ron provided quotes from famous
philosophers who have said otherwise going back a hundred years. How is that
NOT a direct contradiction of your assertion? Sigh.
Scott:
Oh dear, I forgot, in my original statement to include James and Northrop.
That makes three (counting Pirsig).
dmb said:
There is some
consolation that comes with the realization that Scott is oblivious in
general and not just with me. And besides that, how is the "useful"
distinction between sharable experience and private experience anything
other than a slip back into SOM?
Scott:
Is it SOM to distinguish between the sharability of "the light is red" and
"I have spoken with the dead"?
Scott said:
Wilber [in Eye to Eye] identifies three kinds of inquiry:
empirical-analytic (the Eye of the Flesh)
mental-phenomonological (the Eye of the Mind)
transcendental (the Eye of Contemplation)
All three are sources of data and knowledge, and all three (in my opinion,
as well as Wilber's) are legitimate input to one's philosophizing. So all I
am saying is that the MOQ does not need to expand "empirical", and in doing
so, creates unnecessary confusion, as Wilber said.
dmb says:
That's just plain wrong. In factr, Wilber says exactly the opposite, that
the limited meaning of "empiricial" has created the confusion and that an
expansion is what we need...
"Moving from the profoundly important notion that all knowledge must be
ultimately grounded in experience, many classical empiricists collaspsed
this to the absurd notion that all knowledge must be reduced to, and derived
from, colored patches. The myth of the given, the brain-dead flatland stare,
the monological gaze, the modern nightmare: with this impoverished
empiricism, we can have little sympathy."
dmb says:
Further, Ken Wilber uses the word in exactly in the way Scott would
prohibit. Either Wilber is fond of contradicting himself and violating his
own prohibitions, or Scott is one seriously confused guy...
"We have seen that authentic spirituality is not the product of the eye of
flesh and its sensory empiricism, not the eye of mind and its rational
empirisicm, but only, finally, the eye of contemplation and its spiritual
empiricism (religious experience, spiritual illumination, or satori, by
whatever name)."
Scott:
I note that you have chosen to overlook the direct quote from Wilber in
which he say he is restricting his use of empirical "to avoid ambiguities".
Here is where he says that [Eye to Eye, p. 43]
"Let me repeat that one of the reasons that ambiguity can and does occur is
that "experience" can be used in the broad sense ("direct awareness"), but
then also given a common and much narrower meaning: *sensory* perceptions.
By consciously or unconciously juxtaposing those meanings, the modern-day
empiricist can ridicule the idea of knowledge outside experience (so far, so
good), but then *limit* experience to the sensory-empiric modes
(reductionistic fallacy, category error, etc.). And so to completely
confound matters, many of the new humanistic and transpersonal
psychologists, working mostly with intelligibilia and transcendentalia, and
correctly realizing that their data is indeed experiential (in the broad
sense), and wishing equal recognition as "real sciences", simply *call*
their endeavors and their data "empirical", only to find that strict
empirical scientists simply reject their results, sometimes with undisguised
mocking."
"To avoid these ambiguities, I will restrict the term "empirical" to its
original meaning: knowledge grounded in sensory experience (sensibilia). I
suggest humanistic and transpersonal psychologists do the same. Classical
empiricism was an attempt to reduce all higher knowledge and experience to
sensory knowledge and experience. The emphasis on direct experience (in the
broad sense) was the great and enduring contribution of the empiricists; the
reduction of experience to sensory experience was their great and enduring
crime."
So. Don't you think that, at least when he wrote this, Wilber would have
said that Pirsig, by his expansion of the word "empirical" should be
included among those who "completely confound matters"?
Given these contrary quotes, I think we will have to say that Wilber is the
confused guy, not me.
dmb concludes:
As Ant suggested, its best if we stick to Pirsig's definitions and such. I
agree with that sentiment entirely. And so its worth mentioning that I've
brought Wilber into the discussion whenever his ideas illuminate Pirsig and
this is just such a case. Here is one of Pirsig's most concise descriptions
of this same epistemological pluralism...
"When an American Indian goes into isolation and fasts in order to achieve a
vision, the vision he seeks in not a romantic understanding of the surface
beauty of the world. (Its not seen with the eye of flesh) Neither is it a
vision of the world's classic intellectual form. (Its not seen with the eye
of the mind) It is something else. Since this whole metaphysics had started
with an attempt to explain Indian mysticism (Seen with the eye of
contemplation.) Phaedrus finally abandoned this classic-romatic split as a
choice for the primary division of the MOQ. The division he finally..."
Scott:
Again (and how many times do I have to say this), I am not denying that we
learn from other ways than the senses. I ACCEPT what you call
epistemological pluralism. I REJECT expanding the word "empirical" to the
mental-phenomenological and the transcendental, for the same reason that
Wilber gave in Eye to Eye.
- Scott
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