From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 14 2003 - 16:20:55 BST
Dear DMB
Pirsig is not so original in questioning SOM
as some people seem to think, but I think
he does an excellent job of explaining what
a non-SOM approach is all about in a non-jargon way.
Rorty is very low on jargon, not always clear from Matt's
fondness for the Rorty slogans. I have read most of Rorty
and came to Pirsig afterwards and there is no doubt in my
mind that they both strongly criticise SOM. Rorty, however, goes
only so far, he decides that in the ware against SOM it is better
to consolidate, put up some great attacks on the opposition,
dig in, and throw a few crumbs to the realist-scientist camp in the form
of physicalism. Not a bad idea and Rorty is making a case not too far off
the mainstream. Pirsig goes a bit further, maybe his arguments are a bit
thinner,
though this does not mean questionable -just less dug in, of course,
irsig is way out of the sights of the mainstream despite the early success.
So well done Rorty. I think the connections to Rorty would do Pirsig good.
Where Pirsig is no non-reductive physicalist, is a weakness in Rorty already
discussed by the likes of Andrew Bowie in the UK. Matt thinks Pirsig goes
too
far, OK, but he is still on the anti-SOM side by a long way. DMB you should
do
some work and read Rorty so that we can pull him futher away from SOM,
but he is already a lot nearer Pirsig that all the anti-Rorty brigade.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2003 11:35 PM
Subject: RE: MD A metaphysics
> Matt said:
> Rorty doesn't talk a tremendous amount about the concept of "beauty", to
my
> knowledge, except to say that it is thin, like the terms "true" and
"good".
> By thin, Rorty moreorless means undefineable, which pretty much matches
with
> Pirsig.
>
> dmb says:
> I doubt it very much. I strongly suspect that "thin" is very much like
SOM's
> characterization. He's saying such things are "just subjective". I think
> this is just one of a hundred examples that show Rorty to be the problem
> Pirsig is trying to overcome.
>
>
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