From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Sep 26 2005 - 00:25:06 BST
DMB,
Matt said:
That's true, there couldn't literally be a pre-intellectual experience given
pragmatist philosophical redescriptions. What I'm trying to suggest is that
what is called a "mystical experience" is likewise redescribed, and in a way
that retains all the parts people, being post-appearance/reality, wanted.
DMB said:
As I understand it, this really gets at the differences between yours and
mine. To put it in terms of the MOQ this pragmatist assertion (that there
couldn't literally be a pre-intellectual experience) states that there is no
such thing as DQ and sq is all we can ever have.
Matt:
No, that's not what I just said. What I just said was that, if people want
to be post-appearance/reality distinction, then everything that is desirable
about Pirsig's philosophy, e.g. his distinction between "DQ and sq," is
available to us the way I'm describing things. The distinctively pragmatist
assertion is that no vocabulary for description or explanation is
universally privileged over any other. Some people describe X as a
"mystical experience," some people describe X as a "neuron firing." Neither
description is privileged over the other and you use one or the other
depending on your purpose.
The only way for you to press your claim that people who describe X as a
neuron firing are cutting out DQ or whatever is to claim that DQ demands a
certain vocabulary to express it (beyond the obvious sense in which DQ can
only be described by Pirsig's vocabulary). To demand this is to claim that
Reality demands a certain, privileged vocabulary be used to get at It. You
apparently don't want to demand this, though, because that would be
resurrecting an appearance/reality distinction. So I'm not sure where our
problems are yet (except that we apparently don't really understand each
other yet and apparently you have a very deep personal problem with my
writing).
Another way of putting this point is that there are two different ways one
might reach Wilfrid Sellars' idea that "all awareness is a linguistic
affair," two ways to take the "linguistic turn." One is that you think that
you've discovered the nature of reality, it is linguistic. Another is that
you've realized that all we can ever do is talk about this or that, so as a
methodological commitment, you make a virtue out of necessity. The latter
is the distinctively neo-pragmatist train of thought. If I were forwarding
the former, metaphysical (appearance/reality) claim, that there can be no
pre-intellectual experience because I've discovered that the nature of
reality is that it is all linguistic (which is, roughly, what idealism
claims), then you might have a beef. But all I'm claiming is that, in
philosophy, all we are ever going to do when we try and "get everything to
hang together in a coherent way" is talk about the various ways in which we
can talk because that's all we ever could do. You can still claim that this
is degenerate from a mystic's point of view. But all the Buddha could do
for other people was talk to them. All we can do is talk. All we are doing
is talking. So we talk about the vocabularies we are using and what they
are doing. Pirsig at the least holds this methodological commitment as when
he agrees with Niels Bohr's claim that "we are suspended in language" and
when he says that metaphysics is degenerate, but hey, its a part of life.
DMB said:
So I'm hereby asking you to explain what you mean [by "contextualize"] in
conventional English. And I suppose it wouldn't hurt to explain what
"recontextualization" means too.
Matt:
from www.dictionary.com (which I use all the time, and I imagine might be a
source for "conventional English"):
-------------
con·tex·tu·al·ize
To place (a word or idea, for example) in a particular context.
-------------
con·text
1. The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or
passage and determines its meaning.
2. The circumstances in which an event occurs; a setting.
-------------
con-
Variant of com-.
-------------
com- or col- or con- or cor-
Together; with; joint; jointly
-------------
text
...
4. Something, such as a literary work or other cultural product, regarded
as an object of critical analysis.
...
6. A passage from a written work used as the starting point of a
discussion.
7. A subject; a topic.
-------------
So we all learned something there. I didn't know the prefix "con-" was a
variant of "com-". "Recontextualize" isn't "conventional English" insofar
as it doesn't appear at www.dictionary.com. But it does say this:
-------------
re-
1. Again; anew
-------------
I won't even risk insulting your intelligence.
Matt said:
Telling me that a mystical experience is only correctly described in the way
that you tell me (voicing the tradition of mysticism), and that I'm blind to
it otherwise, is like a witchdoctor telling us that the demons he sees
surrounding a sick person (differently colored demons corresponding to the
different kinds of mushrooms that'll cure the patient) can only be correctly
described _as_ demons, in the way he and his tradition tells us. Otherwise
we are blind to demons. We don't care, though, because demon-belief was
used to help cure sickness and we've since found better ways of diagnosing
and curing sickness. Those are two descriptions that conflict because they
have the same purpose for being around and, predictably, cultural evolution
chooses the one that works better. Everyone can _insist_ that things be
described as they want them to be, but that insistence isn't proof of
purchase on our imaginations. What we need is to be told _why_ we should
describe things as you do. What purposes is that tradition satisfying and
what reason are we to suppose that we get the best satisfaction from that
tradition rather than another?
DMB said:
Witchdoctors and multi-colored demons? You can bet your bottom dollar that
I've been treated by medical professionals many times but I've never seen a
witchdoctor or a demon except in movies and comic books. But more
importantly, I really don't think my assertions about the primary empirical
reality are analogous in any way to the belief in demons, no matter what
color they are. Further, I honestly don't care which words are used to
describe this pre-linguistic experience. I'm trying to get an idea across
here, one that can be and actually is described in many, many ways. So long
as the concept is clear, it doesn't really matter what we call it. I'm not
insisting on any particular description. Far from it.
Matt:
But it seems you are insisting on a particular description. It would appear
you can't countenance the description of X as a "neuron firing" as being an
acceptable description. Demon-talk is analogous to
mystical-experience-talk, and both analogous to neuron-talk, because they
are _all talk_. This is the point I'm not sure we understand each other on
yet and for which I don't want to move past until we do. So again, "Telling
me that a mystical experience is only correctly described in the way that
you tell me..., and that I'm blind to it otherwise, is like a witchdoctor
telling us that the demons he sees surrounding a sick person ... can only be
correctly described _as_ demons, in the way he and his tradition tells us.
Otherwise we are blind to demons." "Everyone can _insist_ that things be
described as they want them to be, but that insistence isn't proof of
purchase on our imaginations. What we need is to be told _why_ we should
describe things as you do. What purposes is that tradition satisfying and
what reason are we to suppose that we get the best satisfaction from that
tradition rather than another?"
You do, incidently, answer this question when you say, "I mean, as I
understand it, the reason and purpose of adopting philosophical mysticism is
your own happiness and contentment." You're right, this does pass
pragmatist muster. But to convince me that philosophical mysticism is right
for _me_, you have to convince me that I'm sad and discontented and can only
be made happy by philosophical mysticism. The only way to do this, it would
seem (at least conversationally), would be to argue that only the
philosophical mystic can be a pragmatist, much like Kant argued that only
the transcendental idealist can be an empirical realist. In some sense, it
does seem like you want to argue this (as when you argued that the MoQ
rejects representationalism more radically than pragmatism). But in another
sense, if you are far from insisting on a particular description, you
wouldn't want to argue that and I'm still left unsure of why I should adopt
philosophical mysticism.
I have three comments about your use of Hayes. One, my distinctively
Pirsigian instincts reacted poorly to, "The deciding characteristic that
separates these two categories [of cognition] is the presence or absence of
some kind of judgment...." I realize that Hayes works some qualification
around this, but for someone impressed by Pirsig, I would think that all
categories of cognition would in some sense be judgments (since everything
is Quality). I just can't imagine Pirsig signing on to anything that said,
"a cognition in which there is a complete absence of creative judgment," no
less than as the description of his DQ, which I would've thought would have
been more like the complete _presence_ of creativity. So I'm not sure what
the up-shot is of putting (at least that part of) Hayes together with
Pirsig.
Two, the idea of a "pure sensation" is a dubious philosophical idea I think
Pirsigians should stay away from (one that has been excoriated by 20th
century pragmatist philosophy as a remenant of the appearance/reality
distinction). And three, I'm not sure what makes you think I'd have any
problems with the idea of a "modular self." I've been as critical of the
traditional Western portrait of the self as anyone.
I also have a few random things to say about your personal problem with my
writing.
DMB said:
It seems that you are using the word ["tradition"] to describe various
fields, academic disciplines and schools of thought within them. And since
those words are just as easy to type as any other, I sincerely wonder why
you'd refer to scientific experimentation as a tradition.
Matt:
I'd refer to scientific experimentation as a tradition (following, for
instance, Foucault and the well-respected Anglophone philosopher Ian
Hacking) because its part of a larger philosophical point about the
philosophical pointlessness of making a distinction between Tradition on the
one hand and Reason on the other. Its one of the problems the West has
bequeathed us. For instance, its one of the tools the West has used in the
last 300 years to keep religion and mysticism down. I would think you'd be
sympathetic towards getting rid of that tool. (Though, on the other hand,
it would appear that you want to keep that distinction intact, but just move
over a few of your pet projects, like mysticism, over into the good, Reason
category and leave other things like religion in the bad, Tradition
category.)
DMB said:
If you absolutely insist on using the word that way, please be careful to
point out that you are using a very odd definition, one that defies the
usual understanding.
Matt:
Much of the time I do explain things beforehand that I imagine will sound
odd to certain people. Sometimes I don't. Usually when I don't its either
because (a) I'm just throwing out something short and dogmatic (like when I
said pragmatists have excoriated the notion of a "pure sensation"), (b) the
context explains it sufficiently (see definition above), or (c) I've been
talking with the person so long that I've already explained it a bunch of
times. And then, either way, if the person reacts to a term because they
misunderstood the way I was using it, I try and correct the misunderstanding
by explaining what I meant and why I said it the way I did. That, really,
is all I, or anyone else for that matter, does here. Come to think of it,
that's another way of describing what philosophy is. Writer says something.
Reader says, "That doesn't sound right. You said X, but I think its Y."
Writer often responds, "No, you misunderstood me. I said Z, but that
doesn't imply X. It does imply Y, though, so we have an accord." Or some
other variation, particularly if there is a real disagreement. (Though I
tend to think most people, here and elsewhere, too quickly assume everyone
is on the same page and real disagreements lie around unnoticed and
untouched for a long time while everyone bothers themselves with pointless
verbalities.) It seems a little silly to suggest that I don't _try_ to
explain myself (success being something else). I'm often made fun of for
the length at which I write.
DMB said:
Just for the sake of clarity let me add that all I've ever tried to do here
is explain philosophical ideas in conventional terms and/or Pirsig's terms
simply because those are the terms we all share in common.
Matt:
This seems a little misleading. You were just trying to explain Pirsig's
terms in terms of Hayes and Watts. Which you say is fine, because we all
understand Pirsig's terms. But, why would you try to explain Pirsig's terms
at all, then? Don't we all understand them? Doesn't, actually, most of the
controversy in the MD exist because we _don't_ all understand the same thing
by Pirsig's terms?
But there is a larger point here. If you could explain Pirsig's
philosophical terms by conventional terms alone, what would be the point of
using Pirsig's terms _ever_? Why wouldn't we just use this "conventional
English"? Wouldn't using Pirsig's terms then just cause us to be
obscurantists to most of the rest of the population? Why would we even have
philosophy if everything could be done with conventional language (which is
what Oxonian, ordinary-language philosophers kept complaining about
traditional philosophy)?
I would suggest that Pirsig created his philosophical terminology because
there was something lacking with the language he was using before he created
it. Philosophical vocabularies are _not_ completely transparent to
"conventional English" vocabularies (the way we talk in bars with our
friends) if for no other reason then philosophical vocabularies would have
never have caught on had speaking those ways not served some purpose not
served by speaking "the King's English." Vocabularies are supposed to be
slightly opaque to each other. Otherwise there would be no way to demarcate
them as different vocabularies and there would be no communication problems
by people using words in weird ways because there would be no "weird ways."
But people do speak oddly. And sometimes they do it deliberately. And
sometimes they do it deliberately to make a point.
We can use common sense English to explicate parts of Pirsig's philosophy,
but not all of it. That would be to miss part of Pirsig's point in writing.
Another context, another vocabulary, another language we can use is the
Buddhist language of mysticism. Another is the Western philosophical
tradition (or field or academic discipline or school of thought or whatever)
that stretches from Parmenides to Descartes to Russell and beyond. The
latter, I know through experience, is rich in its diversity of language
(some of them, for instance, used common sense French). To put Pirsig in
this context means that some people won't immediately get it because they
aren't sufficiently familiar with why the tradition grew the way it did and
why it talks and has talked the funny ways it does and has. But to not put
Pirsig in this context would be to miss part of Pirsig's point.
You know all this and you agree with all this (I would suspect). But I
don't know how else to put my point that you seem to be acting a little
Stalinesque in your demands on how people (or just I) talk here. If you ran
the show, that'd be one thing. But this is a free forum, not a classroom.
I don't know how else to put my point that, if you are willing to say that
"metaphysics" is not common sense English, and that we need "metaphysics" to
talk about philosophy, then you should probably be willing to be flexible in
your vocabulary in a lot of other ways. When you wrote that "the inabiltiy
to be flexible and creative in our descriptions and explanations only shows
a lack of comprehension and imagination" as an expression of how you feel
about me, I practically fell out of my chair laughing. I've thought the
same thing about you for a long time, too. So I don't know. We both think
the other is being inflexible, but we can both point to a long train of
varying descriptions and explanations. So I'm not sure who's fault it is
that we don't understand each other, who lacks reading comprehension skills
or effective communication skills or just enough imagination that the idea
of trying on someone else's shoes proves impossible. I don't know, me, you?
Or is it that that's not our problem? That our problem is something else?
Matt
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