From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 16 2003 - 01:52:06 GMT
Bo,
Bo said:
I have noticed the endless Rorty debate, but haven't managed find a point of entrance, this however looks familiar. I don't know about Rorty, but Pirsig not only rejects "these contrasting terms", but the SOM.
Matt:
I'm not sure what it means to reject the first, plus the second. As far as I've been able to tell, rejecting the subject/object contrast is the same thing as rejecting SOM.
Matt said:
Come to think of it, what do _you_ think is left after we've diced "objective"?
Bo said:
The "subjective" remains, but Phaedrus rejected that one too.
Matt:
That's what is meant by--oh, never mind.
Bo said:
That opinions emanates from human beings is a truism, but they claim that they are inspired by ...God, by nature, by intuition ....by EXPERIENCE! so that's hardly an argument.
Matt:
Hunh? (I feel like I'm taking a page from DMB. Unlike DMB who enjoys belittling people when he doesn't understand them, I genuinely don't understand and so have very little to add after "Hunh?")
The pragmatist point is, yes, that it is a truism that opinions emanate from human beings. The pipe dream of SOM is that Reality will have opinions of its own so that it will be able to tell us when we are right, and that we don't have just opinions, but absolutely certain knowledge. Pragmatists want simply to take the truism and stop analogizing reality to people.
Bo said:
It leaves us one notch lower on the value scale of the MOQ, but I don't know if you recognize it?. "Subjectivity" (drop the collective) is the social level seen from intellect's value of an objective reality - TRUTH - independent of what people think about it.
Matt:
This is so weird.
Okay, what I'm saying is that the consequences of rejecting the subject/object contrast, the rejection of SOM, is that there is no notion of "objective reality - TRUTH - independent of what people think about it" left. Though I think Pirsig talks like Truth exists independently of what people think about it, thus leading to Kantian readings of his philosophy like Platt's and apparently Bo's and possibly DMB's (I'm fairly undecided on this one; I have a feeling that, for all DMB's protests against contemporary philosophical language, he's actually pretty well tuned to pragmatism), if you look at the way Pirsig says that each level has to stand on the shoulders of the one below it, you'll quite clearly see a different interpretation presenting itself, one in which "Truth" is only created after the social level is created. I think Mark is right on this one, truth is a static pattern.
Bo said:
Wait a moment Matt! Phaedrus rejected the S/O METAPHYSICS (the notion of an objective yet inaccessible reality that we only can come up with descriptions of ...and launched a new world order where the metaphysical slash isn't between subjectivity and objectivity, but between Dynamic and Static Value. About the static universe we can know a lot. You may not subscribe to the MOQ, but please give unto the Caesar ....etc.
Matt:
Did I mention how weird this is?
Yeah, pragmatists reject the idea of an inaccessible reality, too. But what is the MoQ? Isn't it an intellectual pattern that succeeds or fails on its ability to describe the way people behave? This is all I'm talking about with "the philosopher's level of generality."
Matt said:
Its not the case that Rorty is saying that nobody's opinion is real, are all _merely_ subjective, but rather that everybody's opinion is real, its just that some people's opinions are more justified than others.
Bo said:
"Justified"? By what criterion? It shouldn't happen to be Value? Allow me to continue my exposition. My so-called SOL-interpretation is the only one that can save the MOQ from this subjective dilemma you invoke. As told, P. rejected the S/O metaphysics and launched a Quality Metaphysics in which intellect is seen as a STATIC level - not the mind realm where thoughts and/or ideas slosh around.
Matt:
No, no criterion. Just people. Remember the truism, only people have opinions. And that's what I take Value-as-criterion to be: the admission that there is no permanent criteria with which we judge against, only the shifting criteria of people.
And no, there is no "subjective dilemma" (of which I have no idea where I would've invoked it). Dilemmas only appear when we have two crappy choices, such as "subject or object"? When both Pirsig and Rorty reject the choice, they reject the dilemma, though I'm not so sure Pirsig is quite living with the consequences. However, I'm quite sure that you aren't as long as you think "objective truth" exists.
Bo said:
I understand that you use this quote. That everything is "ideas" Protagoras' and why the Sophists were the enemies of Socrates who represented the coming of an objective truth ...and why young Phaedrus was sympathetic for the said Sophists, they represented the level below his own enemy Socrates ....but it is here that Pirsig as the MOQ father should have heeded the "danger" he describes in LILA, namely that of intellect joining biology to fight society. Here - in the Pirsig annotation - the Quality "level" joins Society to fight Intellect and that is foul play. Intellect's value of an objective TRUTH must prevail.
Matt:
Okay, so you think the quote bad. That's at least consistent, and I can respect that. But I don't use the quote to espouse idealism, which is how it sounds. And neither do pragmatists invoke Protagoras as an idealist, but as a proto-pragmatist (I think it much harder to get idealism out of Protagoras then pragmatism, I suppose that's a result of our differing narratives of philosophy). And I balk at the result of your textual analysis of ZMM when you say "...and why young Phaedrus was sympathetic for the said Sophists..." I take the Phaedrus of ZMM to be the metaphysician who is the friend of Socrates, "who represented the coming of an objective truth". Afterall, it was Phaedrus who won the psychic struggle of ZMM and moved onto Lila.
Matt
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