From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 18:29:50 GMT
Erin,
Erin said:
Essence seems to be meaning to me. To understand essence
it seems you are trying to understand the meaning of meaning.
In distinguishing the levels why can't it be described
as understanding the essence of each level.
Do concepts and essence have to be linked?
Matt:
I read Scott as saying that concepts and essences are intrinsically linked,
which is why he blocks my move to make a distinction between the two so
that I can have everyday, run-of-the-mill concepts without hypostatized
essences. You say, "to understand essence it seems you are trying to
understand the meaning of meaning." Pragmatists take the search to
understand the meaning of meaning as a philosophical dead-end unless you
construe the meaning of meaning as Wittgenstein did: when we ask after
meaning we ask about use. If we ask about the meaning of word X all we are
asking is how we use word X. This is relational. Philosophical essences
imply static meanings, true meanings of words or concepts that must be
ferreted out.
You asked, "In distinguishing the levels why can't it be described as
understanding the essence of each level?" I think you can. I take this to
be the project DMB is undergoing, trying to get to the essence of the MoQ
(which I take to be a hopeless project). I can't remember how DMB
characterizes what he is doing, but if he took a nominalist, pragmatic
stance, he would simply say he is trying to figure out what Pirsig thought
he himself was up to, rather than searching for the essence of the MoQ. If
he said this, I would take his project to be scholastic and he and I would
have no metaphilosophical quarrels because it would be obvious that he and
I have different projects most of the time. Sometimes I search for what
Pirsig was trying to do, sometimes I don't. When I'm hunting down tensions
in Pirsig, I'm doing scholarship. When I'm reading him as a Roryan
pragmatist, I'm creatively interpreting him. Two separate projects that I
rarely confuse.
Matt
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