From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 03:14:59 GMT
Hey Matt,
MATT
> Incidently, you mention you've read Dewey. I haven't read much of him
> firsthand, but because Dewey is Rorty's hero, I've picked up a few things
> about him. The thing that I noticed in Rorty's descriptions of Dewey,
> particularly when he describes some of Dewey's shortcomings, is how much
> Dewey sounds like Pirsig. Like Dewey's suggestion that we treat nature
and
> experience as quasi-synonymous, which seems like Pirsig's equation of
> reality with experience. And for all of Dewey's protestations against
that
> "nest and brood of Greek dualisms," in Experience and Nature he attempts
to
> construct a metaphysics. Sound familiar? So, I was wondering if you'd
> care to reflect on any connections you've seen between Pirsig and Dewey
> (who may have been a better hero for Pirsig, then James).
RICK
I think you're pretty dead-on in suggesting that Pirsig would have found
far more to identify with in Dewey's pragmatism than in the pragmatism of
James. Unfortunately, I don't have any of Dewey's books with me to cite to
specific passages (most of my books are in storage right now). But if memory
serves, like James, Dewey's pragmatism was a reaction to the prevailing
metaphysics of the day. Only Dewey objected to the 'pragmatism as a method'
vision of pragmatism that James held (remember I briefly described this
Jamesian view of pragmatism during the 'Nazi' thread). Instead, Dewey saw
pragmatism as being grounded in empiricism.
Dewey's vision of pragmatism is not entirely unlike what Pirsig comes up
with when he 'integrates' James's dual philosophies of pragmatism and
radical empiricism into a single fabric (LILA ch29 p418). Incidentally, I
think that James wouldn't have been happy with Pirsig's integration. I
think James deliberately kept his two philosophies separate because he
wanted pragmatism to remain 'metaphysically neutral' in as many senses as
possible. But Dewey had no such intention. Dewey wanted pragmatism to be
grounded in empiricism.... like Pirsig.
While searching for some Dewey quotes on the web to back my statements,
I found the following in an article from the "internet encyc. of philosophy"
section on Dewey. I think it nicely captures Dewey's vision (at least as I
understood it). See if any of this rings an MOQ bell for you....
ON DEWEY'S 'EXPERIENCE AND NATURE'....
Dewey begins with the observation that the world as we experience it both
individually and collectively is an admixture of the precarious, the
transitory and contingent aspect of things, and the stable, the patterned
regularity of natural processes that allows for prediction and human
intervention. Honest metaphysical description must take into account both of
these elements of experience. Dewey endeavors to do this by an event
ontology. The world, rather than being comprised of things or, in more
traditional terms, substances, is comprised of happenings or occurrences
that admit of both episodic uniqueness and general, structured order.
Intrinsically events have an ineffable qualitative character by which they
are immediately enjoyed or suffered, thus providing the basis for
experienced value and aesthetic appreciation. Extrinsically events are
connected to one another by patterns of change and development; any given
event arises out of determinant prior conditions and leads to probable
consequences. The patterns of these temporal processes is the proper subject
matter of human knowledge--we know the world in terms of causal laws and
mathematical relationships--but the instrumental value of understanding and
controlling them should not blind us to the immediate, qualitative aspect of
events....
RICK
Catch all that? Dewey carved experience into what could accurately be
described as static and dynamic aspects and stated that both are essential
to metaphysics. He disposed of 'substance' as well as some other
traditional metaphysical concepts...like causality, and replaced them with
an 'event ontology' which sounds chillingly like Pirsig's 'quality events'.
He draws attention to the 'ineffable qualitative character' of events and
explains how they are connected by patterns of change and development...etc.
Had Pirsig found Dewey as a 'role-model' he might have avoided
'correcting' James's pragmatism into something it was specifically not meant
to be.
any thoughts?
takecare
rick
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