From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Nov 17 2003 - 14:11:25 GMT
Hi Matt
More questions. Please keep going, it's getting interesting :-)
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.
Paul:
But here on this forum, "common sense" is the very thing we are
disputing, among other things.
Matt:
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:
Using statements like "We have no problem with saying that a real tiger
caused us to have a belief in the tiger" in a philosophy discussion
group because it is common sense is a bit like arguing with a string
theorist that "of course there are only three dimensions, that's just
common sense." It just kills the process of inquiry. I suppose you would
rather we just talked about politics? :-)
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...
Paul:
If value is reality and everything is either static value or Dynamic
value then everything is real, thus the appearance/reality distinction
disappears.
Matt:
...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:
To what benefit? Democritus and Stephen Hawking both talk about "atoms"
but this does not reduce Hawking's physics to that of Democritus.
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.
Paul:
"This leaves physical reality right where it was..." - where was it?
According to which theory of physical reality?
I get it - come on Paul, we all know what a tiger is etc....
Matt:
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:
Except that I can grasp specific things with my hands, and the things I
can grasp are constrained by the size of my hands. Isn't that a perfect
analogy to language hooking up with specific perceptions? Also, I
thought nothing constrained the use of language.
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.
Paul:
Agreed, but "human" does not equate to "language." We are born with
limbs but we are not born talking. There was a period of our lives when
we had no language yet we still perceived, do pragmatists think this is
permanently lost as soon as we begin to speak? This is where the
immediately apprehended aesthetic reality of the orient comes in and
where Dynamic Quality comes into the MOQ.
Matt:
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:
Previously you wrote:
"Pragmatists think that instead of thinking of language as analogized to
a glass that we look through, like a tinted lens that colors and helps
constitute what we see, we think of language as analogized to an arm or
leg"
But now you say you do see language as a tinted pair of glasses except
we can also do the linguistic equivalent of eating steaks with it.
Reversing the analogy, knives and forks don't seem to me to mediate
perception; at least, to the extent that they do, I can easily put
knives and forks down when I don't want them.
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).
Paul:
Apologies if you've defined this before, but what is non-reductive
physicalism? I thought "physicalism" was defined by being "reductive."
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?
Paul:
Is it fair to say that pragmatism avoids being a metaphysics by simply
referring to common sense for its basic assumptions about the world? If
so, didn't the core of western common sense (substance, matter) begin
with Plato and Aristotle?
Cheers
Paul
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