From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Oct 27 2003 - 00:33:05 GMT
Andy and all truth seekers.
Andy said:
I still don't understand the source of your irritation with Matt and Rorty.
I think you believe you have made some very specific objections that Matt is
avoiding, but I think he has honestly addressed each and every one of them.
Perhaps, it is becuase your points are do not come accross as clear to us as
they are to you.
dmb says:
I'd be happy to try and make my points clear. As I've said, answering
questions and addressing objections is what its all about and I'm glad to do
it. But apparently I'm not worthy to speak of Rorty and so there aren't many
questions asked about my thoughts, just dismissive insults and such.
Andy said:
I still don't know how this helps us recognize truth. Or how to identify a
dangerous idea. Or how to reveal the "right" morals to live by. You have
said truth and morality are as real as trees and rocks, but you don't offer
us any way to percieve this reality. I don't see how Pirsig has given us
another option. Do you see why I am confused? If truth is not what we can
agree upon and if it is not absolute then what is it? How do we know it?
Understand, that I am open to the possiblity of another way to identify
truth, if you can present it. I just have not grasped onto what it is you
might be saying.
dmb says;
I don't think I was trying to answer all those big questions. We could get
at them. They're good ones. But my point here is much more narrow than that.
My point is simply that Pirsig and Rorty have different theories of truth.
(It seems they are hostile to each other in other fundamental ways too.) I'm
just saying that Pirsig's theory of truth doesn't seek or lay claim to the
absolute Truth. Nor does it assert that truth is merely a property of true
statements. The MOQ's assertion that truth is simply a high quality
intellectual explanation is far less grandiose than absolute Truth, but it
is far more "solid" and real than a property. For Pirsig, our truths about
reality are more than a collective hunch too. Its the third choice you asked
for. The MOQ can't construe truth as a propery of statements because
intersubjective agreement is still just subjectivity. In ZAMM he's trying to
get us to see technology, like his motorcycle, as ideas forged in steel.
He's asserting that the Buddha can be found in the gears of his machine just
as well as in the petals of a lotus flower. The MOQ makes the idea part of a
larger system where ideas are a product of creation in and of themselves,
not an attribute of some other thing. In this picture, we don't agree about
the truth of ideas, we ARE ideas - among other things. There are propably
lots of better ways to get at the differences, but I'd imagine you see what
I'm getting at by now. Let me know.
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