From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Wed Sep 03 2003 - 19:40:30 BST
Hi Guys
Here's my solution to your argument. DMB has got Rorty very wrong to put him
in the SOM
camp. Post-modernism is all about questioning SOM, so is Pirsig. Therefore
they should be
friends because SOM has all the big guns. Nevertheless, post SOM we still
want to talk
about knowledge. Rorty's solution is to talk about what works, so does
Pirsig. Pirsig says there are
levels that can't be reduced to each other, Rorty says there are different
language games that can't be
reduced to each other. Great. Problems: Pirsig talks about metaphysics this
sounds like SOM to a
pragmatist hence they go anti-Pirsig. Rorty talks about brains, neurons as
producing minds and says he is a physicalist this sould like SOM to a
Pirsigian. My view is that Pirsig uses the word metaphysics but look at the
detail and he really
is not talking about the essentialism that goes with SOM. It would be fairer
to say that MOQ is not really a
metaphysics, it is sort of a declaration that there is a limit, i.e.
Being/Quality cannot be defined, this is the same
as Rorty saying that correspondence theory has got nothing to correspond to.
Yet Being/Quality will not go away.
Rorty probably recognises this within his physicalism. But physicalism makes
Rorty an inconsistent post-
modernist, as Andrew Bowie says in his book on Schelling: "The important
fact that makes one sceptical about
Rorty's position is that Rorty himself actually does retain a ground, in
that he, albeit somewhat inconsistently,
advocates a form of physicalism, which involves a questionable ontological
commitment of the kind he
critisises in others." Matt talks about the mechanistic approach working
with rocks, fine it does, but
you can change the words as Pirsig says, e.g. from cause to value, it makes
no difference to science
but it changes the ontological assumptions and implications. This odd
inconsistency of Rorty's effects very little of his work
maybe .005% and the rest is as useful in the broadening of the possible
beyond SOM as Pirsig is. I say physicalism is not
justified because it adds nothing to the science, a more post-modern
approach would be to be more ontologically
neutral and say that we can define static patterns and use these to predict
the behavious of systems, any talk of
causes is very ontological, goes against the probablistic nature of modern
science, so Rorty should be more of a pragmatist
and drop the physicalism, or, as I prefer, we could say static value
patterns, as per Pirsig, and very much like
Heidegger, becuase we recognise the primordiality of value/care, that things
only show up in the human-life-world
if that matter to us, hence we do not feel radiation as no such sense has
proved to be of evolutionary use. Use/value Pirsig/Rorty are very hard to
separate at all, very close cousins, so much better than SOM.
regards
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2003 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: MD A metaphysics
> Then I noticed that I had bashing my head against the wall in front of me,
>
> David said:
> I am enjoying this exchange.
>
> Matt:
> Well, that makes one person. Wait, I think DMB is probably enjoying it.
I think he likes being argumentative and self-righteous.
>
> David said:
> I agree that the problem with Rorty is his materialism or physicalism, I
am happy with all the stuff he says about epistemolgy# and pragmatism but
then he seems to go off in a completely unsupported physicalist direction.
>
> Matt:
> It is unclear how physicalism is supposed to be supported if not by its
utility. It works. Mechanistic explanations work when trying to predict
and control rocks. I don't know what else to say.
>
> Besides, if physicalism is unsupported, I fail to see how any alternatives
have support. The question is what we take to be support, and that would
seem to always be a question-begging affair. But that's what pragmatists
predict: supporting your basic assumptions about the world, be it
"physicalism works with rocks" or "don't be cruel to other people", will
always be visciously circular.
>
> David said:
> What we call matter is just what the sciences currently picture it as
being, which is constantly changing.
>
> Matt:
> Yes.
>
> David said:
> Rorty seems to do little more than make philosophy bow down to the
physical sciences and I am not keen to buy that.
>
> Matt:
> Nope, sorry, not buying it. See either my reply to DMB or Part I of
Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. If anything, Rorty wants philosophy to
bow down to literature. On that, see Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.
>
> David said:
> And if physicalism is not about reductionism what is it?
>
> Matt:
> Its non-reductive physicalism. See either my conversation with Scott this
past month or "Non-Reductive Physicalism" in Objectivity, Relativism, and
Truth.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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