From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 16 2003 - 01:04:00 GMT
Paul, Johnny, Scott,
Paul said:
Even during our discussion, there is a difference between making a distinction between e.g. "fish" and "not-fish" and making a causal relationship out of the distinction between "the world" and "belief." I would suggest that there is nothing "useful" about identifying that the world causes me to have beliefs, the beliefs are useful or not on their own. If pragmatists don't want to play metaphysics, perhaps they should stop making general statements about fundamental causal relationships ;-)
Matt:
Fundamental causal relationships. I don't get it. The pragmatist's "general statements about fundamental causal relationships" aren't really philosophical in the way that metaphysicians want our general statements to be. They are supposed to look like facile common sense for a reason. Pragmatists think that the tiger is real. We have no problem with saying that a real tiger caused us to have a belief in the tiger. No metaphysics within a mile for the reasons I've stated.
Paul said:
What if a metaphysics states that the evaluation of "handiness" that selects your assumptions is primary empirical reality?
Matt:
I'd say that the metaphysics is still brokering on the appearance/reality distinction for some sort of philosophical legitimacy and that it should just drop the notion of a "primary empirical reality," and therefore of metaphysics, so that it would no longer have what is common to both Plato and Kant.
Paul said:
Where does this leave physical reality, is there only "talk of physical reality"?
and
What I'm saying is that you seem to be making the assumption that words are only ever about more words, including the world that you are claiming causes you to create words and beliefs.
Matt:
The pragmatist is making the claim that words only hook up to other words, that the only thing that gives a word cognitive meaning are other words. This leaves physical reality right where it was--about to devour me unless I run away from it.
You are still trying to fit me as an idealist, but the difference between the idealist and the pragmatist is that idealist is still hanging onto the Kantian idea of language-as-representative. And because of Kant, we no longer think that our language will ever be able to represent the world-as-it-is-in-itself, therefore all we know that exists are representations or language. That's silly, says the pragmatist. I'm quite sure that the tiger exists. What the pragmatist does is clear away the conceptual debris that would lead us to such an absurd view. He suggests that we think of language as a tool with which to cope with things like the tiger. With this image, its no problem to think that language only hooks up with language, just as our arm only hooks up with us.
Paul said:
So you're saying that language alters perception about as much as limbs do?
Matt:
That's a good question. No, the pragmatist agrees with the representationalist that our language changes the way we perceive the world. But because of the metaphor the reprsentationalist is using, he gets the idea that we can peel off our language and see the way the world really is. Instead, pragmatists insist that there is no way to peel off the human from the inhuman. The representationalist says that the language we use is like a pair of tinted glasses--what we see changes depending on what tint we use. Well, the pragmatist says the same thing, except that the metaphor becomes the language we use is like a tool we use to eat our steak--what we do changes depending on what tool we use.
Paul said:
The MOQ says that Quality creates beliefs about a pre-existing physical world. Pragmatists seem to be saying that a pre-existing *physical* world causes pragmatic beliefs, of which the pragmatic belief about a pre-existing world is one such belief and round and round it goes until the pragmatist says "but we're only having a discussion, I don't do metaphysics..." and continues to successfully dodge tigers :-)
My suggestion to Matt is that if "the world" is understood as value (which is fundamentally prior to and neither physical nor mental) the circularity is avoided. Both the physical (objective) world and (subjective) beliefs are encompassed in a larger framework of value which still retains the pragmatic assumption of a pre-existing physical world. But to assert this is a metaphysical claim which pragmatists avoid like the plague.
Matt:
Ah, I see. You think I'm making an ontological claim, as if I'm a metaphysical materialist. Pace Scott, pragmatists see a difference between metaphysical materialism (which is included under Scott's 'nominalist' epithet) and their own non-reductive physicalism (which is not). It doesn't matter to the pragmatist whether "'the world' is understood as value" or "the world" is understood as material. We see both things as means to an end. Science has found it useful to investigate things as material. We say let them, as long as they keep their claims out of ontology (which would include residual reductionism). Politics after Marx has found it useful to think of everything as made up of differing values. We say let them, as long as they keep their claims out of ontology (which is the same thing we say to Pirsig).
Paul said:
My point was more that pragmatists say they only hold beliefs that are useful and don't see the point in purely metaphysical claims. I was suggesting that as beliefs can be considered useful or not regardless of how they are "caused," pragmatists need not make such claims as "the world causes us to have certain beliefs" and thus leave metaphysicians to it.
If you have demonstrated a practical use for such beliefs then my argument is a poor one.
Matt:
This is where it is helpful to think of the pragmatist as espousing facile common sense, rather than a sophisticated analysis of "causal pressure". Because it is sometimes helpful to know what caused your belief in the existence of the tiger in front of you--was it a tiger, or was it the acid you ingested?
Matt
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