From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 19:31:04 BST
Steve,
Steve asked in series:
Do you think that there is anywhere to get to? Do you think there are
higher and lower levels of awareness? Higher and lower levels of cognitive
ability? Higher and lower stages of moral development? Etc?
Matt:
Anywhere? No, I wouldn't put it like that, but I do think that we have a lot of room for moral improvement and growth. And I wouldn't say that the type of improvement I think possible would let us reach a "higher level of awareness." I wouldn't, personally, prefer to use that terminology, but there are formulations of moral improvement that would make reference to higher levels of awareness. For instance, becoming more aware of the forms of cruelty around us. But I think this is a fairly bland use of awareness as compared to the way it is used in mysticism and other related philosophies. And as for cognitive ability, outside of physiology (which I'm sure will bring all the usual round of epithets of "materialistic nihilist"), I don't think there are "higher" levels of cognition, as in some kind of transcendence. Those things just don't make sense to me.
Steve said:
Do you personally find any use for the idea of transcendence? I think what
makes me cringe is the sense that you don't see any perspective as better or
worse than any other. It's the apparent lack of possibility of ascent in
your philosophy that bothers me. I'm sure you'd say that this is not your
view, but it's hard for me not to read you that way. I'm not sure where
the block is in my understanding. You say that you don't say that but in
your explanations I read you saying it again.
Matt:
Transcendence? No. I'm not in favor of making discrete, metaphysical cuts between different "kinds." That's what I think is needed to use transcendence in a non-vegetarian sense.
I'm not sure where you read me as being an "arbitrary relativist" either. Point out some specific pieces and I might be able to clarify. As a lead in, one reason pragmatists look like arbitrary relativists is because they refuse to play metaphysics, they refuse to make the cut between discrete kinds, like everyone from Plato to Pirsig does. But just because we refuse to do that doesn't mean we can't choose between Pepsi and Coke. That's why I think the idea of an arbitrary relativist is incoherent, or a strawman. In practice, nobody is and the only place that the relativist is important is in practice.
On the idea of contradictory ahistorical hierarchies, the gist is that, following a line of reasoning developed by Davidson, I think it is incoherent to have two hierarchies, both of which mutually preclude each other, co-exist and both be True ahistorically, now and for all of time. As I see it, if two ahistorical hierarchies were both true, then there is a meta-hierarchy behind those two that is the real hierarchy we should be paying attention, not the two lesser hierarchies.
Steve said:
Some people are stuck in an egocentric understanding of the world while
others have reached a higher ethnocentric understanding. Still others like
you are able to see that what their own culture says is right and wrong is
not absolute. They have a world-centric view. Is none of these
perspectives better than any other? I see these as stages of development.
(The higher level includes the lower.)
To tear down such a structure is to destroy the means that got you to the
level at which you could critique structures and would end the possibility
for growth.
Matt:
I don't think any of viewpoints are absolutely better than the others, no. I think of it more pragmatically than that. It's great to try and take on a perspective that includes all the cruelty done in the world, but sometimes its not practically possible to take on all of the world's problems. Sometimes we have to deal with our own. If we are always pining about the Third World's problems, then its possible we'll forget about our family's problems.
Steve asked:
Do you think about what is good? How do you make decisions?
Matt:
I do think about what is good. But here's the different between me and Plato and Pirsig at his worst. When I think about what is good, I'm thinking about things that have the adjective good attached to them. What Plato thought was that by meditating on the Good, as a thing-in-itself, we would be able to be more moral. That's what led to metaphysics. The pragmatist tradition throws that project away. I think Pirsig thinks roughly the same thing, that by meditating on Quality, we will become better quality people. That's how I read the end of Lila, when he says that "Good is a noun." As I see it, that's a Platonic mistake.
And I make decisions just like everybody else. I think about options, alternatives, consequences, possible outcomes, etc. and I weigh and reason my way through them. But I don't think there's anything metaphysical about it.
Matt
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