From: Matthew Stone (mattstone_2000@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 10:02:24 GMT
Platt,
> Is Foucault's judgment about what is or isn't
> "reality" a universal? It
> looks like Foucault claims to know the truth about
> "reality." Does he set
> forth an entire metaphysics to back up his claim,
> like Pirsig?
> Looks to me like being "decentered" is a "universal
> good" in Foucault's
> value system.
Foucault makes no judgement as to what reality is,
only to how we have perceived reality. He doesn't
even prescribe how we ought to perceive reality, only
hinting at the general direction in which we are
headed, in the wake of key figures such as Nietzsche
and Freud. Thus, he has no 'universal good' - or if
he does, it is formal, not substantive, applying only
to the rigours of (historical) analysis, and not to
any metaphysical assumptions or prescriptions.
This can be transposed to all of the postmodern era of
thought in general, in the sense that man's progress
loses it's meta-narratives, it's 'big concepts', and
is deconstructed to show the contingency, the
historically-sensitive context, and the indeterminacy
of things previously thought to be absolute. I'm
quite keen to keep this thread on the track I started
it on - that the intellectual level makes Pirsig's
prior postmodernist angle less credible, but I guess
it's integral to clarify whether he is 'postmodern' in
the first place, so we'll have to get this out of the
way first.
> As for the MOQ, if Quality isn't a
> universal in Pirsig's
> theory, you and I have a different view of the
> meaning of "universal."
Quality is universal in the MoQ, but not in reality
itself. I understand that conceptual constants are
necessary for thought, but the transposition into the
realm of the universal truth is what bothers me.
> Whose "thought" are you referring to? Do you see
> something wrong
> with arguing against the "last 40 years of thought?"
I'm referring to the postmodern trends in
deconstructivist Europe (e.g. Foucault, Derrida,
Lyotard, Baudrillard, Satre, as well as 'golden
oldies' like Nietzsche), as well as the so called
'bourgious liberalism' in the US, exemplified by Matt
E.E.'s favourite, Rorty. Of course, each of these
contributions can't simply be reduced to the idea,
'truth is contingent', but they all build upon an
anxiety over 'universals', meta-narratives, and the
idea that human reason holds the solution to
everything.
There's nothing wrong at all per se with arguing with
40 years of thought. It's just that it's better to
have an awareness of what is happening in
contempoarary ideas than not be aware. If you can
persuasively argue against it, then good for you!
> Slavery could not have been immoral before mankind
> came along
> because slavery by definition requires the existence
> of one man to
> enslave another. Gravity as a name for a force
> didn't exist before
> mankind because names for things are products of
> man. But if gravity
> as a force didn't exist prior to mankind, we
> wouldn't be here to call it
> "gravity."
So, if slavery is a product of man, then isn't the
immorality that arose *after* slavery a construction
of man? If slavery is absolutely immoral, why has it
existed un-hindered, in many socieities and cultures,
for all of humankind's time prior to the 20th century?
Or the immorality an inevitable (and thus
'universal'?) condition of human reason? Is this
universal, or is it something that has been
constructed with, if not by, man, that can thus be
analysed from the 'outside'?
> I think they
> would
> > rather it be phrased “all I can be sure of is that
> > there is no universal truth”.
>
> Let's see. Is that 100 percent "sure" and thus a
> universal truth, or 99.98
> percent sure and thus more accurately "maybe sure."
> If the former, you
> can see the self-contradiction I'm sure. If the
> latter, the door to
> universals is left open. It's my contention that
> logically you cannot deny
> the existence of universals without invoking a
> universal in your denial.
I think here we have the difference between a formal
and a substantive 'universal'. I would contend that
the latter is a myth (presumably contrary to your
views), but that the former can be self evident. I
can be sure that I know nothing: this is formally an
'absolute' statment, but it contains no substantive
universality. I think this may explain our
differences on the logic of postmodernism - the
postmodernists all do make claims about what we can
and, more commonly, cannot know, but you will rarely
see any of them making a substantive claim. Formal
'universals' perhaps can be verified, by their
historical evidence, or self evidence in the way the
human brain functions; substantive universals, such as
morality, are clearly different.
Matt
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