From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Sat Apr 16 2005 - 23:47:28 BST
Ham stated April 15th:
It has been some time since I attended a Logic class. If "synthetic a
priori" judgments are logically invalid, it supports the claim of Pierce,
among others, that we cannot know whether any belief about the world is
absolutely true or not.
Ant McWatt comments:
Ham,
Firstly, I’d like to know why if ‘synthetic a priori’ judgments are
logically invalid, it supports the claim that we cannot know whether any
belief about the world is absolutely true or not. You make a reference to
Pierce but you don’t provide any explanation.
Mark H stated April 15th:
>Ant's point is that LPs can say the statements "God exists" or
>"Essence exists" are meaningless, but they cannot claim that "value
>exists" is meaningless since they themselves are making a value
>judgement when they say their theory of knowledge is better than
>others. The MOQ gets them off this hook; but Essentialism (and your
>off-point answer above) does not.
Ham replied April 15th:
What, precisely, is this "hook" that so concerns the MOQ and its author?
Ant McWatt replies:
As Pirsig mentions in LILA, it’s not just the logical positivist or
philosopher but no one (including the scientist) can deny that value exists
without contradicting themselves. If you want a “hard headed” defence of
such a position, may I refer you to Alan Gewirth (a student of Richard
McKeon in the 1940s & later on, a teacher of Richard Rorty) and his 1978
“Reason & Morality”. In this text, Gewirth invented a moral principle (the
Principle of Generic Consistency or “PGC”), according to which all agents
have inalienable rights to the capacities and facilities they need in order
to be able to act successfully i.e. “Agents must act in accord with the
generic rights of others to (the values of) freedom & well-being as well as
their own.” His defense of this principle is that it is impossible to deny
the principle without contradicting yourself (echoing Descartes’ idea that
one cannot deny one’s existence because this very denial implies one’s
existence). Gewirth’s work is an example that it is possible to construct
a moral system without the requirement of religious faith.
For me this boundary line also demarcates new age cult systems such as your
Essentialist system and genuine metaphysical systems such as the MOQ.
Ham further stated April 15th:
And why must a philosopher assume a defensive position relative to the
methodology of the positivist?
Ant McWatt replies:
Do they? All a philosopher of a different tradition has to point out is
that the logical positivists own principle of verification is itself a
‘synthetic a priori’ proposition and, therefore, unable to be held by the
logical positivist without contradiction. Pirsig uses the extreme example
of the logical positivist in order to highlight the absurdity of claiming
that values don’t exist. I don't think he's particularly defensive as
regards the positivists especially as they were undermined by mainstream
philosophers many decades ago.
Ham stated April 15th:
I'm hardly a logician, as you can see; but I sense a fallacy in Pirsig's
statement to me that "the positivist cannot say... that his experiments have
no value." You claim that the positivist's assertion that his methodology
is better than others is a "value judgment". (Would this be an 'analytic'
or a 'synthetic' a posteriori judgment?)
Actually, I'm having a problem seeing this as a "judgment call" at all.
Instead I see the positivist saying simply that value, in this sense,
doesn't enter into his methodology.
Ant McWatt replies:
Even if the positivist is stating ‘simply that value, in this sense, doesn't
enter into his methodology’ - somewhere along the line of reasoning - she
still must have made a value judgement that it was better to design her
methodology in this way.
Ham stated April 15th:
Value for the positivist is a quantitative measurement or reference point
rather than a qualitative judgment -- your meaning.
Ant McWatt replies:
I think the positivist uses value in both the quantitative (i.e. measurement
or reference points) AND qualitative (i.e. judgment) sense. The positivist
may attempt to avoid using value in the latter context but as indicated
above, it can’t be done without self-contradiction. Moreover, how can a
logical positivist coherently avoid the value of truth?
Ham stated April 15th:
I guess my original take on Pirsig's statement was to assume he was
referring to objective values rather than to a subjective value judgment per
se. That was before I understood that the author's value was DQ.) But I'm
still not convinced that this argument isn't flawed by the ambiguity of the
word "value" in this particular context.
Ant McWatt replies:
And, of course, the MOQ is designed to clarify values and their relationship
to objects and subjects. If you read LILA (which remember is condition
number one of being a contributor on MOQ Discuss i.e. “As a minimum
requirement for joining the MOQ_DISCUSS mailing list members must have read
LILA: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig.”) you will see that Pirsig
also makes it clear that the scientist of a logical positivist nature is
indeed correct to bracket out certain values from their research (such as
social values e.g. pressure from the funder of their work or politicians)
though correct to keep some (such as the intellectual value of truth).
Ham stated April 15th:
In any case, the use of such an argument to substantiate the MOQ as an
empirical-based philosophy is a weak defense at best. I concur with Matt,
Sam, and a few others here that the attempt to position this philosophy in
the domain of scientism is fraught with problems and totally unnecessary.
Ant McWatt replies:
I do as well - if scientism is defined as “the belief that the methods of
natural science… form the only proper elements in any philosophical or other
enquiry” (as the “Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy” states). I think Ian
Glendinning is the only member on this Discussion group who appears to
support scientism. However, as he also supports the work of Bill Hicks I
think I can forgive him this particular misdemeanour …
Anyway, it’s odd that you claimed on the same day that the MOQ is both some
type of religious cult and a form of scientism. This indicates to me that
Pirsig is indeed striking the right balance between science and religion.
Ham stated April 15th:
At least I've tried to "freshly engage with the question" -- and with no web
site boiler-plate to irritate your "sliver of annoyance"!
Ant McWatt replies:
That’s much appreciated, Ham. And, for anyone who enjoys looking at New Age
cult philosophies I suppose your website is always there to look at.
Ham stated to Mark H April 15th:
By the way, I'm still reeling from the remark you made to someone a while
back that my "quasi-religious" exposition of Essentialism is "giving
philosophy a bad name". Since I'm such a nice fellow, I'll refrain from
characterizing a certain other philosophy as "quasi-scientific".
Ham also stated in his “boiler-plate” reply from April 14th:
For the Essentialist, the predicates "to be" and "to *ex-ist* are
derivatives of an "uncreated" Essence whose reality transcends the
parameters of finite existence. If Essence is a priori, and existence is
limited to phenomena that occur in time and space, then it is illogical to
say that Essence exists. Essence is the infinite Source of finite
experience, not an existent.
Ant McWatt comments:
Ham, as regards Mark’s comment that your “‘quasi-religious’ exposition of
Essentialism is ‘giving philosophy a bad name’” this paragraph of yours from
April 14th does sound very confused to me (e.g. how can something that not
exist create anything?). I haven’t fully read your website though if the
above paragraph is anything to go by, Essentialism does appear to be the
type of metaphysical system which gave rise to logical positivism in the
first place.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
www.anthonymcwatt.co.uk
_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself with cool new emoticons http://www.msn.co.uk/specials/myemo
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 : Sat Apr 16 2005 - 23:55:45 BST