From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 30 2005 - 19:36:37 BST
Bo,
Bo said:
It puzzles me greatly that you, who debated so hotly with DMB and Anthony
and various "standard-interpreters", now see my SOL as violating the very
same interpretation.
Matt:
Ah, see this is why I don't think you're discerning enough. I see parts of
the standard interpretation as being too traditional, as not breaking enough
ties with the Platonic-Cartersian-Kantian tradition. But with you, I've
come to think that you barely break any ties at all. You seem like a
reactionary compared to the, say, DMB and Anthony. So trotting out the
"standard interpretation" against you is a way of showing how much people
I've been criticizing should agree with against you, how much more I have in
common with them then they do with you.
Bo said:
I did not really think you would admit it, but it looks like I have touched
some sore spot.
Matt:
Oh, no, its definitely a sore spot. It greatly peeves me when people are
glib without having done the work supporting their glibness. It peeves me
when people don't appear to put any work into understanding another person,
and just damn them with rigid categories without using your imagination to
try and get into the other person's way of thinking: thus establishing
_understanding_.
I can't see that you've really made that much of an effort. You've
certainly written some things, like your essays, but your engagement with
others is just discouraging. Your famous parting shot to Straun, "Learn
more about reality!", is not something I'd be proud of.
An example:
Bo said:
In a coming post for Paul I answer his referring to your list of allegedly
S/O "eliminators". I may as well print it here:
"These names and their work "non-S/O"? Show me one who don't take the
mind/matter premises for granted and either "protest" it by inventing some
spiritual mumbo-jumbo that allegedly will make it go alway or - most usual -
declares one aspect to be the real one. The classical materialist is seldom
these days (in my essay I mention Francis Crick's "A Search for the Soul"
book), but the subjectivists flourish ... all in vain."
Matt:
Oh, bravo. Great job. Boy, I've been convinced. Everything I've been
doing is in vain, and I didn't even know it. You asserting my vainity has
really changed my look at things. Wow. Way to go engaging with the biggest
heavy-weights of the latter-half of the 20th century.
I'm not saying that you have to agree that they've dodged SOM. _I_ don't
even think all of them have. That wasn't the point. I don't think Pirsig's
completely dodged it. The next 20 years of philosophy quite possibly will
convince me that Rorty didn't completely dodge it. The point is that they
all have the same goal: getting rid of SOM. They are also all very
different and doing very interesting things in their pursuit. It is
thoroughly naive to damn everyone else because they aren't exactly like your
favorite. That's basically what you're saying: no one else created
something called the Metaphysics of Quality, so everyone else is a failure.
You're way of "answering" of my list is the exact example of rigid thinking
that is sad. "Show me one who don't take the mind/matter premises for
granted and either 'protest' it by inventing some spiritual mumbo-jumbo that
allegedly will make it go alway or - most usual - declares one aspect to be
the real one." Well, its hard for me to "show you" because you've already
decided that all of them have failed. You never argue for it or explain
yourself. I said you'd probably have to take the tact of arguing that you
_can't_ dissolve the mind/matter duality, but instead you just assert what I
said you'd have to _argue_ for: "The S/O won't go away by any chanting about
'it's gone' for the reason that it is a static level and can as little be
eliminated as social and/or biological value can be eliminated."
As far as I'm concerned, none of the people I listed use "mind/matter
premises," not in a way that induces the "duality problems" that we've been
trying to massage out of our culture's common sense. I have no use for
"spiritual mumbo-jumbo" either, but even if they did speak it, it doesn't
mean they are a failure. Saying they speak "spiritual mumbo-jumbo" pretty
much just says they don't write in a way that you find interesting or
useful. That doesn't mean it doesn't get the job done for the people who
use it.
Matt
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