From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jun 15 2005 - 19:02:24 BST
Scott,
Scott said:
So while it doesn't make sense to call the self a container of the set of
static patterns, it also doesn't make sense to say the self *is* the set of
static patterns. When I wake up in the morning, I need to "place" myself,
that is, remember where I am, what I have to today, possibly even my name.
All of these are beliefs, but they make no sense without the setting called
"me". Now this is what Rorty would call an intuition that, in his opinion,
we should get rid of, but while I agree that the intuition that this
'setting called "me"' should not be assumed to be an independent thing (a
container, for example), it is also not the beliefs that are gathered. In
short, it is one of the poles of a contradictory identity (the other being
the beliefs). Each is not the other, but each constitutes the other. What
you four (and Pirsig) are doing is taking one pole of a polarity as true,
making the other pole "just an appearance", and that fails.
Matt:
Nah, I don't think there's any real disagreement here. You say you'd think
Rorty would want to toss the me-setting, but I don't think that's what he's
saying at all. He does want to redescribe this me-setting into something
less problematic, but the fact that we have a sense of individuality
differentiating me from other mes seems pretty basic to who we are and how
we function and I see no reason to toss it out. I can't even imagine
trying. What you describe as the necessary contradictory identity of
(perhaps) the me-setting with the we-setting, I'm quite content to describe
as two sides of the same coin, two different descriptions of ourselves that
we use depending on the purpose involved. I see both ways of putting it as
functioning the same way. I certainly don't think pragmatists are swinging
to the opposite side of a polarity. Sometimes we need to describe how we
become educated, how ideas disseminate, how we communicate, and then it
becomes helpful to describe people in terms of little bottle-like atoms that
interact. But sometimes we need to describe large shifts in beliefs and why
there isn't a substance opposed to matter called the "mind." Then we can
describe people in terms of a large web of beliefs, a gigantic intellectual
static pattern in which an individual "self"-atom dissolves.
I think the difference between you and I is summed up in your use of
"contradictory identity" and my "different descriptions for different
purposes." For the most part, the effect is the same for both of us. But I
think your penchant for your description is part of your desire to hold
things in a single vision, all at once, which I see as too reminscent of
Platonism. You see a contradiction between these various "poles" of
descriptions, but I see no contradiction. Wherever there appears a
contradiction, I think descriptive ingenuity and creativity can dissolve it.
There is nothing that would demand that we live with a contradiction.
Sometimes it means rejecting the duality (mind/matter). Sometimes it means
describing what's involved in a manner that leaves them non-conflicting
(religion/science), so that the purposes of one (with the attendent
descriptions) don't conflict with the purposes of the other. In other
words, we don't have to hold them in a single, steady vision. We can be
bifocal, or really, multifocal.
Matt
_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
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 : Wed Jun 15 2005 - 19:09:25 BST