From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Tue Nov 18 2003 - 15:41:50 GMT
Hi Matt
Matt said:
The caveat is that...I'm not arguing that we should believe it _because_
its common sense, but I'm making a stand and saying that common sense,
on this particular point, is good enough.
Paul:
Good distinction. I think there are two quotes which are relevant to
looking at your statement in an MOQ context.
"When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
assume that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of
us. The MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown
it to be an extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike
materialist metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a
belief - quite different from beliefs in the past, from beliefs of other
present cultures, and possibly from beliefs we will all have in the
future. What will decide which belief prevails is, of course, its
quality." [Pirsig from correspondence with Ant McWatt]
When you say "...common sense, on this particular point, is good enough"
I think there is no disagreement with Pirsig when he says "When we speak
of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to assume that it
is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of us. The MOQ
goes along with this assumption because experience has shown it to be an
extremely high quality belief for our time."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think pragmatists then go on to say that
as nothing in this (assumed) external, independent world will come out
in favour of one belief over another, "common sense" (or intersubjective
agreement) is *entirely* a *product of* society. Turning to our popular
Pirsig quote:
"It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see that although
"common sense" dictates that inorganic nature came first, actually
"common sense" which is a set of ideas, has to come first. This "common
sense" is arrived at through a huge web of socially approved evaluations
of various alternatives. The key term here is "evaluation," i.e.,
quality decisions. The fundamental reality is not the common sense or
the objects and laws approved of by common sense but the approval itself
and the quality that leads to it." [Lila's Child p.564]
"Evaluation" and "approval" is, to Pirsig, the fundamental process of
reality, not society or the common sense that "evaluation" produces.
This metaphysical claim flips over the pragmatist claim that a society
alone decides which beliefs are valuable and says that it is value that
creates both society and its beliefs. In other words, the MOQ says that
value precedes culture.
Furthermore, it is not that nature does or does not value this or that
belief, but that actually our set of beliefs called "nature" are a
product of the process of evaluation (i.e. Quality) itself. It is also
in this sense that I think pragmatism is wrong to say that "nature" or
"the world" causes us to have beliefs as I think this puts the cart
before the horse.
Matt:
What causes me to pause is Pirsig's assertion that the Metaphysics of
Quality is a contradiction in terms, that the other substituted title of
the MoQ is Definition of Undefined. Organization of Experience isn't a
contradiction, though, so why should the MoQ be?
Paul:
I think this excerpt from ZMM provides an answer to your question:
"In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to
our environment with an invention of many marvellous analogues. We
invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts,
language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call
these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children
in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone
who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that
which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the
continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the
world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.
"Now, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include
it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That is why
Quality cannot be defined. If we do define it we are defining something
less than Quality itself." [ZMM Ch20 p.251]
I think the last paragraph explains why Pirsig says that the term "MOQ"
is a contradiction. In Lila, Pirsig expands the philosophical utility of
the word quality by including the definable "something less than..."
(subjects and objects, redescribed as static quality) and keeps the
undefinable Quality from ZMM as Dynamic Quality.
This quote also restates my earlier point when he says that, not the
physical world, but "Quality is the continuing stimulus which our
environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live" and "We
invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts,
language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science". The
pragmatist is stuck in the loop of saying that, instead of Quality, it
is trees, stones and oceans that cause us to believe in trees, stones
and oceans.
Matt:
The issue revolves around whether we take "undefined" to mean "no
essence". This I'm not sure of. I have a feeling it doesn't for
Pirsig, though this is usually what I take it to mean.
MoQ-as-contradiction might have to do with the expressibility of the
essence, Quality. So, words are for expression, but they aren't up for
the task of Quality. This is okay, except I have no idea why an
unexpressable essence is important. Why call it an essence? Not sure
yet.
Paul:
Hopefully the above quote will help. I think you are on the right track
when you say "So, words are for expression, but they aren't up for the
task of Quality" but make an error when you assume that "expression"
starts and ends with words.
Matt:
So, anyways, when I come to your use of metaphysics, I have to make a
choice: which way are you using it? I chose the old, representational
way because you also said, "primary empirical reality." Pragmatists
like myself go, "Primary to what?"
Paul:
Words, concepts, beliefs.
Matt said:
What the pragmatist does is....suggest that we think of language as a
tool with which to cope with things like the tiger. With this image,
it's no problem to think that language only hooks up with language, just
as our arm only hooks up with us.
Paul said:
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.
Matt:
Sure, you can hijack my analogy, but I won't follow you in it.
Paul:
Because it turns out to be a bad analogy?
Matt:
"The human serpent coils around everything" (or whatever it was James
said) is a slogan that means, no, we can't peel off language from our
perceptions. Pragmatists don't think of it as "losing" anything when we
acquire language, we think of it as gaining something. Pragmatists
think of perception as a tool to cope with our environment and language
as an amazing innovation on it. As soon as you perceive something you
are thinking about it and for neo-pragmatists, thinking is
thinking-in-a-language. Pirsig talks about a time lag, but I think
that's a pretty flimsy (though supposedly empirical) way to make room
for the "immediately apprehended aesthetic reality".
Paul:
Whereas some people of the world successfully place this flimsy
"immediately apprehended aesthetic reality" at the heart of their
cultural lives.
"...the genius of the East is that it has discovered a type of knowledge
and has concentrated its attention continuously, as the West has not,
upon a portion of the nature of things which can be known only by being
experienced." [Northrop, The Meeting of East and West p.315]
Matt said:
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:
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.
Matt:
Whoa, what the hell was that? That's quite a mangling of an analogy.
I'm saying that the pragmatist _does_ toss in his glasses, and instead
picks up his fork and knife.
Paul:
If "tinted glasses" is an analogy of language and "The human serpent
coils around everything" is a slogan that means, no, we can't peel off
language from our perceptions" then you cannot toss in your glasses.
Matt:
What I was trying to say is that both analogies agree on one issue: that
depending on what kind of glasses/utensil you use, you will see/do
something different. Now, your stumble ("knives and forks don't seem to
me to mediate perception") punches up the fact that you are still
thinking of perception (and language) on the analogy of _sight_.
Paul:
Not really, I'm just not sure that the pragmatist analogy between
language and tools is a good one, for reasons already stated, although I
agree that language as a representational hook isn't great either. More
importantly, I'm not sure that the "language as a tool" analogy solves
the "language as a hook" problems.
Paul
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