Re: MD When is a metaphysics not a metaphysics?

From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 22 2003 - 14:23:33 GMT

  • Next message: David MOREY: "Re: MD When is a metaphysics not a metaphysics?"

    David,

    David said:
    What status quo do you mean?

    Matt:
    The status quo I mean is the status quo of taking certain questions seriously that we've always taken seriously. History is littered with questions we no longer take seriously. Now, you are probably right, I need to read more non-pragmatist philosophy. But the question is, why should I take the things they talk about seriously as opposed to what the pragmatists take seriously? Rorty responds to the question of how we are to decide whose questions take priority by saying that everybody begs the question over everybody else, there is no way to argumentatively decide. But, he says, this doesn't mean we are being arbitrary by insisting that our questions take priority, we are simply being sincere. We are making a value judgment.

    David said:
    Pirsig's engagement with MOQ has guts and an impressive range of use in various fields, pragmatists I feel are skeptical about the possibility of attaining a more unified approach to knowledge in our current fragmented times.

    Matt:
    Pragmatists think they have the pulse of the times by noticing that "attaining a more unified approach" is what Plato was after. They are skeptical about Plato. His unification project has been going on for quite some time without much results. We think we should leave it be.

    Besides, I don't think Pirsig is really offering a unified approach to knowledge. I think his main suggestion, that everything is based on value choices, is the same as Rorty and pragmatism's and that both Pirsig and Rorty would agree that what physics does, physics should do and that what anthropology does, anthropology should do, that there shouldn't be some unified method. As Pirsig says in Lila, "The language of physics is no good for anthropology." (Thanks to Paul for that one.)

    Matt

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