From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 16 2003 - 19:20:39 GMT
Paul,
DMB said:
But I think Matt has missed Paul's point in two important ways, the first one being very simple. The truth discovered in a vision quest is just not related to any of this. Its a whole different beast. No agreement is required and its meaning to the quester is, in some sense, beyond dispute.
Matt:
I agree entirely, and that's why I think you are both still missing the point of me saying "intersubjective agreement is a continuum". Platt pointed out rightly that sometimes you have to justify beliefs to yourself. I tend to think of most philosophy books as part of the author's attempt to justify his own beliefs to himself, to keep the demons at bay, as it were. It strikes up with Jeffery Stout's description of the historicist (which we can take to be the pragmatist):
"Historicism says to traditional philosophy what we are all inclined to say to adolescents from time to time: you are going through a phase. The analogy accounts both for the style of explanation historicists give and the kind of reaction they typically call forth. Orthodox philosophers sense condescension in historicist criticism -- an air of superiority, a reductive intent, a failure of seriousness. But historicists are largely talking to themselves, disarming the voice of temptation by giving it a context and thereby coming to grips with their own past." (Stout, The Flight from Authority)
Rorty said in a reply to Christopher Norris that the only people who really get into Heidegger and Derrida are people who were taken by philosophy earlier in their lives, people who came down with what Heidegger, Derrida, and Wittgenstein would diagnose as the Platonic disease.
This is all in the way of saying that many times the person we are justifying ourselves to is ourself, which is to say you are seeking agreement with yourself. That seems a strange thing to say, but we do it all the time when we are not sure about something, when we find ourselves with a belief that we aren't quite sure is accounted for. That is at one pole of the continuum, one person holding a belief. Everyone will be quick to pounce, "HEY, that's subjective!!" What I've been trying to say is that the force of belittling a belief as subjective is deflated once we take its opposite, objective, out of the loop. When a person comes back from a vision quest, he doesn't have to justify it to anyone as long as its justified to himself. If the purpose of the vision quest was for personal redemption and expansion, then there's no reason for to expect the person to justify it to anyone else. If the purpose of the vision was something else, like advancing the tribe along a ne
w path or changing the course of philosophy, then there is a need to justify it to other people, but only the applicable people--your tribe or the philosophical community (or whatever audience you think is applicable).
Now, as far as I can tell, Paul and DMB should agree with the above. What I've been trying to say is that we really don't disagree all that much on certain issues, like the legitimacy of a vision quest.
Matt
p.s. I think it hilarious that Platt should tag DMB with what is usually reserved for me: "the philosophical game of "redescription" to suit their own agendas instead of sticking to common meanings of words."
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