From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Nov 16 2005 - 20:54:27 GMT
I wanted to pull something out from my long, mountainous thread with DMB to
emphasize it. One of the things Paul and I (and I would think Anthony and
DMB) agree on is the need to get rid of representationalism in philosophical
thinking. Representationalism is the contemporary, professional term for
the idea that language represents objects. We can easily see this as part
of the Subject-Object paradigm by emphasizing how language _in here_, in the
mind, is supposed to represent objects of cognition _out there_. So, the
line continues, since values aren't objects _out there_, as far as we can
tell, they must only exist as linguistic structures, which means they only
exist in your mind, your head, the subject. Therefore they're subjective,
your morals and values are hinged only on _your_ perspective, and since your
perspective is eternally different from anybody else's (unless you've
divined a way into other people's heads), values can't be compared and are,
really, whatever you like.
So representationalism is one of those structural pillars of SOM that have
to go. The modern version started when Descartes said that the function of
the mind was to mirror nature and that philosophy was supposed to be able to
tell us how clean or dirty our mirror was. Through several twists and
turns, philosophers at the turn of the century put aside the mind and asked
how our language mirrors reality, or as it is sometimes put, how (and when
and where) our language "hooks up to" reality.
What I would like to suggest is that Pirsig sometimes uses an outdated image
of language's relation to reality. DMB, I think accurately reflecting
Pirsig's language, said in our dialogue (on Nov 13):
"Surely anyone can see the difference between an unknowable realm that can
never be experienced directly and an experience that can't be captured in
words?"
I can't remember if Pirsig uses the particular image of language "capturing"
experience. But the sentiment is there in several places. The place I
would like to focus on is in the beginning of Lila when Pirsig describes
mysticism and logical positivism. Roughly, Pirsig says that the logical
positivists think that (some) language can capture reality perfectly well,
we just have to iron out when and where (yes with rocks, no with values),
and that the mystics think that language can't capture at all. Language
takes you further away from reality, not closer. I said earlier (on Nov 11)
that both the idea that language can span the gap between us and reality and
the idea that it _can't_ take part in the pathos of distance. Both have as
a common presupposition the idea that there is a _gap_ between us and
reality and both have suggestions about how to span that gap (through
language on the one hand and direct mystical experience on the other). When
Pirsig says that, since both logical positivism and mysticism eschew
metaphysics, metaphysics might be the place to mend the two together, to
split the difference between the two, I think Pirsig takes on as conceptual
baggage that common assumption: there is a distance.
I think that causes Pirsig to take along some of SOM's conceptual machinery
and that that will eventually bog him down in SOMic problems. I think the
way to split the difference between logical positivism and mysticism is to
eschew the common presupposition between them--the idea that language is
supposed to "capture" anything, that there is a _gap_ or _distance_ in need
of being spanned. Pirsig leads us towards that eschewment when he tells us,
following James and others, that experience _is_ reality, but I don't think
he goes far enough in the erasure of the pathos of distance with his
descriptions of language's function.
Language neither does nor does not capture experience. Language isn't in
the capturing business. Language is a tool that we use to deal with
reality, with our experience. If we make this turn fully from
language-as-a-mirror (or pirate) to language-as-a-tool, if we fully get rid
of representationalism, I think we will want to get rid of the idea of a
"pre-intellectual experience." What we will have instead are
_non_-intellectual experiences, like kicking a rock, seeing a sunset, being
eaten by a tiger, dropping some acid. Its not that our language _fails_ in
capturing our experience of smoking peyote, its that language sometimes
finds it _difficult_ to deal with it. The experience of having a tough time
of putting something into words isn't a measure of language's failure or
success, its simply a measure of difficulty, of the struggle to find an
analogue that makes sense in the analogues upon analogues upon analogues
that make up civilization's knowledge.
The effect of this way of splitting the difference between logical
positivists and mystics is to say, against the positivists, that mystics do
produce knowledge, but, against the mystics, that this knowledge is not from
a _distinct_ and _particular_ direct relation to reality. Once you make
experience coextensive with reality _everything_ is a direct relation to
reality. Smoking peyote will not get you closer to reality if only because
there is no distant reality to get closer to--reality is always and
everywhere around us. What we can say after we split the difference is that
mystics do produce knowledge, just as the physicists do, but its just a
different kind of knowledge, not aimed at prediction and control, but at
something else, like spiritual balance. The fruits of the mystics'
knowledge tree, the one where the Dao de jing grows, shouldn't be judged by
the standards of other trees, like science, because the purpose of growing
the tree is different. We don't pull out and burn the tomato plant because
it doesn't grow as tall as the pine tree. We grow both, one for delicious
tomatoes and the other for climbing and sitting under for shade.
Matt
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