From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Wed May 28 2003 - 02:33:14 BST
Matt,
Let me see if I can tone down my rhetoric a bit, and just describe my
circle. Some of this is very basic, but I need to set my use of terms. Since
I find no conflict between pragmatism and metaphysics, and you see them as
antithetical, it is obvious that we use the words differently, so here I am
just showing how I use them.
Modern (by which I mean 17th century and on) philosophy works from a basis
of a common sense of two vocabularies, the intentional vocabulary for
describing human activity (beliefs, desires, pain, etc.), and a
non-intentional vocabulary for describing physical activity. So that, for
example, we recognize that we are speaking metaphorically when we curse our
computer for crashing. [Note: the qualifier "modern" is important here,
since -- following Barfield -- prior to the modern age the nonintentional
vocabulary hadn't developed. So common sense was different.]
One can get along with these two vocabularies, unless and until we
philosophize, for which I'll accept Sellars' characterization: how things
...hang together, etc. In particular, it involves questions that arise for
which it is not immediately obvious which vocabulary to use. These questions
arise largely as a result of investigations in science and religion. For
science the issue is obvious: science can only operate in the
non-intentionial vocabulary, but what does it do when it wishes to
investigate people? Religion, on the other hand, has had to react when some
of its myths and superstitions (explanations in intentional terms) turned
out to have adequate non-intentional descriptions.
There are three general ways to deal philosophically with the two
vocabularies: dualism, materialism, and idealism. Each has subdivisions, of
course, but here I just want to stay at the general level. The materialist
assumes that everything has a non-intentional characterization, though I
acknowledge the distinction between reductive and non-reductive
materialists, where the latter says one shouldn't assume that the
intentional vocabulary is translatable to the non-intentional. Also, the
pragmatic materialist does not assume that the non-intentional is true,
while the intentional is false (or "just shorthand"), as s/he looks at the
non-intentional vocabulary as true by its utility in dealing with things and
events, and not according to how well it corresponds to some fixed objective
reality. It is always a vocabulary.
Nevertheless -- and here is where I gather we part ways -- I consider any
materialist stance (or dualist or idealist) to be a metaphysical stance.
Each one gives an answer to how the two vocabularies relate, and all such
answers go beyond the appearances -- which are the two vocabularies -- to
assume something about "how everything hangs together".
This has consequences, the main one being that it tends to stop the
conversation. This is where, I think, pragmatism helps, in that it, as you
reiterate in a more recent post, emphasizes the contingent. In a way, for a
pragmatist, no vocabulary is final, and that is an absolute good [sic].
That's also my answer to the typical accusation of self-contradiction: Yes
there is an absolute, namely that all patterns are contingent (except
tautological ones, as in mathematics), and that is the starting point of
ironic metaphysics.
Enough of that.
You say:
>The difference between our two positions is that, because you
>believe in a hidden reality that can force upon us pure facts,
I either misunderstand, or object. Mysticism, as I understand it, does not
force any facts upon us. The Awakened one does not see different facts
(well, there are celestial visions and such, but the "better class of
mystic" discounts that as just more objects to not get attached to.)
Instead, he or she has a different orientation to facts. For one thing, it
is understood that no facts have ever been "forced" upon anyone, or maybe
there is no "anyone", and we are just the facts, ma'am. [Different mystics
say different things, so I'll leave this as confused as it sounds.]
>if we never read mystics, its almost like a crime against humanity because
we will never
>reach the Truth if we don't acknowledge the mystic reality.
Well, John Wren-Lewis is one who never considered mystic reality before it
jumped up and bit him, so, no, faith is not required. But it does help.
Reason is required, though, since mystics run the gamut from pre- to
trans-rational, so one needs to read critically.
> If people never read pragmatists, however, its simply unfortunate because
pragmatists are simply
> betting that pragmatism will be better than mysticism, rather than saying
that pragmatism is the True Reality
People should read pragmatism, because mystics are the most pragmatist
philosophers around. I see mysticism as the fulfillment of pragmatism, but
only when one gets over that materialist bias Dewey and Rorty have. The
mystic Knows that all is contingent, and is therefore free. And, I see
deconstruction, particularly self-deconstruction, as a mystic path (I was
about to recommend once again Magliola's "Derrida on the Mend", but I recall
you looked at C. W. Huntington's "The Emptiness of Emptiness", which goes
over some of the same ground. Still, Magliola goes over the relation of
Nagarjuna to Derridean deconstruction in more detail, especially parts I and
III.)
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 8:42 PM
Subject: Re: MD Structuralism in Pirsig
> Scott,
>
> Scott said:
> But clearly, Rorty can't accept this, since he is a materialist. To put it
> another way, it is not a case that the appearance/reality distinction
serves
> no purpose, but that a materialist has to see it as false, as being
> anti-materialist.
>
> Matt:
> And here, I think you are wrong about this. Rorty doesn't accept the
appearance/reality distinction because he's a materialist (an outdated word
he doesn't use anymore in his own carefully nuanced self-descriptions), he
doesn't accept it because he's a pragmatist. You could be the opposite of a
materialist, an idealist, and deny the appearance/reality distinction. And
reductive materialists use the appearance/reality distinction when they say
that mental events are really just physiological events, as I think you've
pointed out before.
>
> Scott said:
> There is also the criticism that it (metaphysics) is a
conversation-stopper.
> It seems to me that it is the Rorty's of the world who are trying to stop
> the philosophical conversation, and again for dogmatic reasons. It is
> Rorty's belief in materialism that leads him to put down Platonic
> philosophy, not a historical summing up. Of course, for him, metaphysics
> cannot do any good, because he believes there is nothing to be
metaphysical
> about. But 2500 years of mystics, some of them metaphysicians, should tell
> him he might be wrong. (How to interpret quantum mechanics might also get
> him questioning.)
>
> Matt:
> Rorty does go to great pains to say that he has no intention of stopping
the philosophical conversation, just the metaphysico-epistemological
conversation. And again, I don't think his materialism necessitates his
anti-Platonism. Marx, after all, was a good materialist metaphysician. And
so were the early analytic philosophers. And so are the current realist
philosophers. As for dogmatic reasons, they are no more dogmatic then your
own. After all, you aren't a non-reductive physicalist. The difference
between you and Rorty, as I see it, is that you both draw opposite morals
from the history of philosophy.
>
> Scott said:
> In any case, what I am trying to say here, then,
> is that in your criticism of Pirsig's metaphysical tendencies, you are
being
> just as dogmatic, just as, if not more, dependent on a particular belief
in
> How Things Really Are -- in particular, They Are such as to lead one to
> discount mystics. Have you let yourself be open to writings of
contemporary,
> philosophically literate mystics, or do you assume it is a waste of time
to
> read them? (Examples: Bernadette Roberts, Sri Aurobindo, John Wren-Lewis,
> and of course my fave, Franklin Merrell-Wolff.)
>
> Matt:
> Well, saying that I do have a belief about How Things Really Are both begs
the question and is a lie. I don't do metaphysics and I don't have such a
belief. But we've been around this tree before (who's going around who
we'll leave to the Jamesian philosophers watching us ;-). And I have read
some mystic literature. I don't assume its a waste of time because I'm too
young and haven't read enough of it to make assumptions like that. But like
many people who read, I read where my interests take me and, philosophically
speaking, where the footnotes take me. Rarely they take me to the names
you've mentioned, but Merrell-Wolff is one I've read before in my seperate
readings. The difference between our two positions is that, because you
believe in a hidden reality that can force upon us pure facts, if we never
read mystics, its almost like a crime against humanity because we will never
reach the Truth if we don't acknowledge the mystic reality. If people never
read pragmat
> ists, however, its simply unfortunate because pragmatists are simply
betting that pragmatism will be better than mysticism, rather than saying
that pragmatism is the True Reality.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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