From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 02 2003 - 20:03:25 GMT
David M and all:
DMB had said:
...to assert that there is nothing to be said about truth, to assert there
is nothing general or useful or philosophically interesting, and then assert
that truth is a propery, a quality, an attribute of some other thing...
David M added:
(YES QUALITY IS ALL THERE IS=REALITY=EXISTS)
dmb says:
You're inserting a Pirsigian definition into a paraphrase of Rorty's theory
of truth. Its pretty clear from his description that he was not using the
word "attribute" to refer to "all there is" or anything like that. In this
case, I only used quality in the same way that Rorty uses words like
"attribute" and "property". As Rorty uses it, we're talking about features
and aspects of particulars, not all of reality.
David M said:
But DMB this is the whole deal, pragmatism is as post-SOM
as MOQ is. Reality=exists=quality. truth is a quality therefore it exists
things have a quality therefore they exist, everything exists, you have
the SOM hang ups about what is real/not real, not us pragmatists.
Idealism/materialism is SOM with one of the poles more or less
suppressed. MOQ and pragmatism are two ways of trying to give
up dualism, this is all very much like the trots fighting the Leninists,
same side and fighting the wrong enemy.
dmb says:
Everything exists? Isn't that a bit vague? I'm trying to make a distinction
between the kind of status given to truth in the two theories. Of course
attritbutes exist, but in what sense? As I understand it, Rorty's attack on
SOM consists in denying that objective knowledge of things like truth is
impossible and hands the whole thing over to intersubjective agreement,
where even the progress of science is a matter of linguistic practices.
Pirsig does not reject one end of the pole for the other, as Rorty seems to
be doing. He includes both subjects and objects in a larger framework. In
the same way, he doesn't reject empiricism, he expands it. One of Pirsig's
main problems with SOM is that it treats words like "good", true and
beautiful" as adjectives, as descriptive, which seems to be what Rorty is
doing when he says truth is an attribute. These are very different
solutions.
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