From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 27 2005 - 20:21:17 BST
Matt and all MOQer mockers:
Matt Kundert said:
The pieces of quotes from Pirsig you offer showing Pirsig eshewing
representationalism and foundationalism are the same ones I read when I need
to be reassured that Pirsig is trying to be a pragmatist. Those are not the
ones at issue. Its other quotes that sound representational and
foundational, and then when you combine them with the ones you've provided,
it doesn't make a lot of sense.
dmb replies:
The quotes were offered not to reassure you that Pirsig is a contemporary
pragmatist, but to show you what Pirsig is adding to it. And of course the
implication of adding to it is that it is lacking something. That's what I'm
trying to get you to see. I mean, it seems that you are looking at the MOQ's
Eastern elements and evaluating them as if they were Western and so
foundational. See, I'm suggesting that Pirsig imports ideas from cultures
that do not have the same problems. Even if we buy Rorty's story of history
and are convinced that Western philosophy is dead, does that also kill
Buddhims and Taoism? Its not that they are immune or magically walled off
from error, but "God", "self" and "substance" and "matter" are concieved
quite differently in those traditions. I think that Pirsig only SEEMS to
make little sense and only SEEMS to contradict his claim that the MOQ is an
extension of pragmatism. Again please notice that he highly qualifies what
counts as "good" and that he is indentifying "pure value" with "pure
experience". This addition can hardly be understood in terms of Western
philosophy. (I hope Smith and Watts were helpful.)
"the MOQ is a continuation of the mainstream of 20th century American
philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the
test of the true is the good. It adds (THE MOQ ADDS!!!) that this good is
not a social code or some intellectualized Hegalian absolute. It is direct
everyday experience. Through this identification of pure value with pure
experience, the MOQ paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at
experience which can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional
empiricism has not been able to cope with."
Matt continued:
When you go on to the second part about the moral hierarchy and the primary
empirical reality, that's where I think Pirsig attempts something
_philosophically_ that can only be done practically. When you say that "By
introducing the levels, pragmatism is no longer easy pickings for the Nazis
and such. As to how we keep the Nazis from claiming their's was an
intellectual good and not just a narrowly viewed social good, we can't,"
this is where I would claim that Pirsig's distinction between levels doesn't
do us any good at the philosophical level.
dmb replies:
I'm only saying that an author can be held responsible for any fools or
liars who might abuse her ideas. But it seems to me that one of the central
reasons that Pirsig claims the pramatist tradition is the view that
philosophy MUST recognize its moral responsibility. Ideas have consequences,
especially the unexamined assumptions that trickle down to non-philosophers.
And it seems to me that pragmatism can be quite disasterous in this respect.
Forget about the Nazis. Let's talk about right now, right here. Surely you
are aware of the effects guys like Rorty have on guys like Platt. He makes
them crazy. From a certain perspective Rorty is just the latest
representative in a long line of horrors. To them, this is the nihilism that
killed God and it destroy our "values". And personally I think the reaction
is far worse than the disease, but they still have a point. This is what
Pirsig was talking about when he complained that 20th century intellectuals
championed criminals and saints because nobody could get a handle on the
difference. And look at the newspapers, dude. The political right is moving
in several directions in their attacks on university professors, the tenure
system, evolution in the schools, and even attack on prestigeous journals.
I'm not looking for death camps or black uniforms, but it seems to me that
the reactionary and fascistic tendencies here at home are being conjured up
by what is seen as atheistic, nihilistic relativism. It makes 'em crazy.
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." (Nietzsche)
"If there is no God, then everything is permitted." (Dostoevsky)
"Everything that exists is born without reason, continues to live out of
weakness, and dies by chance." (Sartre)
dmb continues:
Think of it this way. There are two radically different scenes with entirely
different contexts. One is Richard Rorty's office and his is thrilled with
the radical freedom that comes from having no God and no foundational
limits. Without God, he says with a big smile on his face, everything is
permitted. And in the man in the second context also quotes Dostoevsky,
except his not happy. He's standing in a concentration camp looking at a
pile of skinny corpses. And I think that both are right to feel the way they
do. How is it that freedom and grand injustice can proceed from the same
assertion? Where there is a lot of freedom there is also degeneracy. The
freedom to improve is also the freedom to destroy.
Matt continued:
............................................It only has a use at more down
to earth levels, like in politics. This is why, in that long ago series of
posts "Begging the Question, Moral Intuition(s), and Answering the Nazi," I
claimed that looking for an answer to the Nazi at the philosophical level is
a mistake, because it can't be done, which I see you as willing to go along
with at this point. Its why I claimed that looking for a response to Nazis
in James' _pragmatism_ was a mistake, moreorless analogous to the category
distinction Pirsig makes between the social and intellectual level. I'm
claiming that its like trying to answer an ethical dilemma by opening a
physics book. James' _politics_ is what held his response to the Nazis
because pragmatism only makes a negative philosophical point about things
like representationalism and foundationalism. When Pirsig tries to tie it
together with something else, like a moral hierarchy, I think it will get
bogged down in old problems if he tries to put it to use.
dmb says:
Bogged down in old problems? You mean old philosophical problems, don't you?
Is that really of more concern than the practical effects and implications
of the worldview he offers? I think the idea of sorting out social and
intellectual values is to save lives and I'm not kidding. Or think of it
this way, Pirsig shares that negative philosophical point but refused to
leave it hanging, as you would like, because of these social consequences.
Matt continued:
If philosophy is a practical endeavor in which we try and see how the world
hangs together and move the conversation foward to better and better
descriptions of how it hangs together, then I think the attempt to include a
moral hierarchy that helps us in our relations to others (including Nazis)
founders when it is put to use. Because either you have to go
transcendental (and look for a traditional foundational pivot point) or you
beg the question. The first will go nowhere (as Pirsig's pragmatism shows
us) and the second shoots us to another conversation: like a political one.
And this is already how we deal with the Nazi, so I'm not sure what the MoQ
adds to our revulsion of the Nazi. You talk about "moral paralysis" the
same way Pirsig does, which is what wet liberals get when they're trying to
not be ethnocentric, but I'm not sure that a "moral hierarchy" is the salve
that will eliminate it. At the level of generality we're working at, it
just sounds like something we'd need an epistemology to hold up. I don't
see how moral problems and ethical dilemmas have suddenly become
"scientific," which is what Pirsig, and Anthony after him, claim. How have
they become scientific except in such a wide sense of "science" that
includes every inquiry and debate ever held?
dmb replies:
We'd have to go transcendental or beg the question in order to assert a
moral hierarchy? I really don't see why. It seems to me that Pirsig bases
the distinction between social and intellectual values on historical facts.
It is rationally defensible and based on conventional human experience.
There are undoubtedly a number of conclusions one might draw based on the
very same evidence, but I honestly can't think of anything that would count
as evidence against it. Can you? I mean, as a practical matter its not such
a trick to distinquish the first commandent from the first amendment or
science from creationism. In fact, it strikes me as absurd to even suggest
they are on the same level in any sense of the word. This moral hierarchy
goes way past the problem of cultural relativism. I mean, the paralysis of
20th century intellectual comes from a more generalized inability to sort
out such things. The negative point against foundationalism is every bit as
disbilitating, if not more so. (Pirsig mentions Dewey by name in this
respect.)
Matt concluded:
And "speculation" in my usuage isn't frivolous. Its what all the great
poets and philosophers and physicists and all have done by creating the
intellectual patterns with which we know the world. Speculation, as I'm
using it, is that stab in the dark towards Whitehead's "dim apprehension."
You say Pirsig is doing something more that redescribing lots and lots of
stuff, more than speculation, but I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Redescribing lots and lots of stuff is what philosophers do when they
construct a system or a theory or a metaphysics or a new intellectual map,
or whatever else you want to call it. Sometimes they think they are doing
something else, like discovering the hidden reality behind appearances, but
I know you don't think that's what Pirsig's doing. So what else is there?
dmb replies:
What else is there? Well, that's the $64,000 question. I guess I'm trying to
get you to see that there are more than just two options. I'm saying that
the MOQ is based on experience, but without speculation nor foundations.
Feel free to orrect me if I'm wrong here, but it seems to me that the MOQ is
quite open to the creation of new forms, new ideas and new worldviews, but
it also contains that prohibition against recklessly abandoning the forms of
the past. It seems to me that the effect of making a purely negative is a
very destructive move. There is a real reason that it freaks out the
knuckle-draggers. This is why I'm trying to get you to sort out what
Pirsig's additions really mean, where they come from and what they are
doing. See, as a student of intellectual history, I think Pirsig has really
nailed it. I guesss you can call it a redescription if you want, but it
seems clear to me that he has at least begun to sort out the spiritual and
political problems of the West. And at this point I will close by reminding
you that the 20th century, as far as death and destruction go, is probably
the worst one since 75,000 B.C.
And its all your fault. Thanks alot. ;-)
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
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 : Sun Mar 27 2005 - 20:26:56 BST