From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Mon Oct 13 2003 - 04:54:39 BST
Hi Matt,
> Steve said:
> Pirsig acknowledges that the MOQ is based on one big assumption (that reality
> = Quality) and a bunch of smaller ones. The fact the he is not paralyzed by
> the fact that reasoning must always start with assumptions and goes on to make
> assumptions anyway does not make him a bad pragmatist. Or does it?
>
> Matt:
> No, no, that wasn't my point at all. Part of my point was to show that Pirsig
> _agrees_ with Rorty about assumptions.
Steve:
Oh, okay.
>The whole idea of a "spiritual
> rationality," one in which "ugliness," "loneliness," and "spiritual blankness"
> "become illogical" fits in exactly with what Rorty describes as the
> differences between vocabularies. Most philosophers these days acknowledge
> that we have to have assumptions to reason. In fact, I can't think of one
> that doesn't. So paralysis isn't what we are dealing with. The difference
> between Rorty and the "bad pragmatist" Pirsig (which is one way to read
> Pirsig) is that, while it isn't apparent to me that Pirsig thinks _arguing_
> can change the truth-values of our assumptions (which is a good sign), Pirsig
> thinks that something "out there" can compel us, force us, to change the
> truth-value of our assumptions, force the Nazi to play by MoQian rules. This
> is the way in which Pirsig is trying to usurp the rhetoric of the hard,
> natural sciences
Steve:
But can't we also think of DQ as one of those assumptions Pirsig is making?
This hypothesized "something out there" is part of what makes the MOQ the
best metaphysics I know.
> . Pragmatists think that our environment, reality, something "out there,"
> does constrain us. While we don't try and correspond to this reality, we do
> think it causes us to believe certain things, like "rocks fall when they are
> let go" and "there's a tiger biting Roy's neck". Pragmatists think this is
> fairly unproblematic when talking about rocks and tigers, when talking about
> the things the natural sciences talk about.
>However, we have no idea what it
> means for something "out there" to constrain our morals in any easily
> identified way, in any obvious, intuitive way. What constrains an American
> (the suffering of Jews) does not constrain the Nazi.
Steve:
I think you are betraying the materialist assumption that stands within your
version of pragmatism. Why does it make sense for rocks and tigers to cause
you to believe things but you can't accept DQ? What is intuitive and
obvious about rocks, that DQ is lacking?
Anyway, if DQ does not make Pirsig's MOQ a better explanatory tool for you,
then I guess as a good pragmatist you should reject the MOQ as you have. I
still don't see why Pirsig is a bad pragmatist for including DQ which many
of us find to be helpful in describing experience.
I see Pirsig as a post-pragmatist and as a post-post-metaphysical
philosopher. He is post-pragmatist because he accepts the critiques of
pragmatism on modern philosophy yet moves on. He is post-post-metaphysical
because he sees his metaphysics as an intellectual postulate, and because
his intellectual postulate includes the proposition that the MOQ will be
replaced by something better.
> Steve said:
> Can the Nazi use the MOQ to support his beliefs? You claim that he can by
> basically adding some MOQ vocabulary to his Nazi talk. My impulse is to say
> that what the Nazi was applying is not the true MOQ, to which you would no
> doubt respond that there is no ahistorical MOQ out there to be corresponded
> with. Yeah, but still the examples you gave about the Nazi applying the MOQ
> are not about the true MOQ. I mean, do you think a Nazi who says that Jews
> are mere animals and that fascism is the best government is making correct
> applications of the MOQ? (Note: assume I accept your definition of
> "correct.") If not, then we agree that the Nazi can't correctly use the MOQ to
> support his cause.
>
> Matt:
> I'm willing to say that there is a true MoQ if we limit that to mean "the MoQ
> as conceived of in Pirsig's books". Of course, as I quoted Rorty as saying at
> the end of the last post, "the works of anybody whose mind was complex enough
> to make his or her books worth reading will not have an 'essence,' that those
> books will admit of a fruitful diversity of interpretations, that the quest
> for 'an authentic reading' is pointless." So, I'm not sure that any MoQ we
> pull out of Pirsig's books will be impervious to evidence-to-the-contrary that
> we can find in Pirsig's books (or even if we just limit it to Lila). However,
> for the sake of argument, I'm willing to say there is a true MoQ. Given this,
> what I'm saying is that if we limit the MoQ to its abstract parts, its moral
> hierarchy and some other abstract metaphysical and epistemological parts, then
> yes, its easily cooptable. What makes the MoQian vocabulary "impervious" to
> cooptation is Pirsig's explication by historical examp
> le of things like "freedom". Its only when he concretizes the MoQ that it
> becomes clear why the MoQ wouldn't be cooptable by the evil people of the
> world. But that's defining all the key terms in your favor, which is why it
> then begs the question over the Nazi, just as Rosenberg begs the question over
> the rest of the liberal world when he defines the highest form of blood as
> Aryan (ironic given his Jewish ancestry). So, yes, the MoQ that the Nazi
> would deploy is not the same as the true MoQ, the MoQ found in Pirsig's books.
>
> You can see why I'd agree to a "true MoQ" for the sake of argument; even if we
> tripled the amount of tension in Pirsig's books, there is no way we could call
> Pirsig a Nazi. The reason for this is that what keeps Pirsig from being a
> Nazi are the concrete sections of history he does, not the abstract
> philosophizing, and the abstract philosophizing is where all the tensions
> appear (so far as I've seen). If Pirsig had _simply_ written a moral
> hierarchy and dressed it up with a few metaphysical and epistemological
> arguments, then I don't think there would have been anyway for us to say that
> the Nazi couldn't use it because there would have been no evidence to say that
> Pirsig meant it one way and not another.
I don't see how this is in any way a critique of Pirsig's MOQ or a
refutation of his claim that the Nazi could not justify his actions by the
MOQ. I think you're basically saying that Pirsig is wrong because the Nazi
could use it as long as he didn't understand it? To me that means he
couldn't use it.
> Steve said:
> I don't think Pirsig is saying that armed with the MOQ we can argue with the
> Nazi and convince him that we are right and he is wrong, just that he can't
> make a reasonable argument that he is right based on our MOQ premises.
>
> Matt:
> Absolutely, that's the argument I'm attempting to make in the second part.
> However, when I go on to part three, I'm attempting to show that Pirsig does
> show signs that he thinks the Nazi should be _compelled_ to play the MoQ game
> and this would show the Nazi and his moral intuitions to be unreasonable,
> illogical given the MoQ's "new spiritual rationality".
Steve:
I think it's part of Pirsig's intellectual postulate called the MOQ, that we
all play the MOQ game. That's part of what makes it a metaphysics. I don't
see the problem. According to the MOQ, the Nazi's reality and experience is
Quality, too, yet he is dominated by social patterns of value and so he is
likely to see the MOQ as a threat to society.
Thanks,
Steve
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