From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 17 2004 - 14:48:59 GMT
Paul,
Paul said:
Ah, of course, Matt's favourite "anti-pragmatist" statement.
Matt:
I got a chuckle out of that one.
Of course, I wish it weren't my favorite antipragmatist statement. I wish there weren't _any_ statements that sounded antipragmatist.
Paul said:
Is this what you are referring to, Bo? Isn't he just saying that human beings are more highly evolved organisms than germs, always will be, and no matter which culture you live in? He is demonstrating his belief that science (in this case, the theory of cosmological evolution) can support ethics. He does this by taking an explicitly "obvious" case and showing that it is obvious because of the gulf between the levels of evolution. When the distance between patterns, in evolutionary terms, is shorter he says it is not as clear but that the MOQ can help analysis of moral issues nonetheless.
I don't think he is saying anything about metaphysics, his or anyone else's, being the absolute, timeless truth.
Matt:
Ya' know, everytime I read somebody reading Pirsig as a straightforward pragmatist, it gives me hope. I rush back to the passage they read and try reading it as they do. But I just can't. The first problem I see in your alternative interpretation is, if we are dealing with an evolutionary system, why would you ever say that a species will _always_ be better able to survive than another (simply taking it from a biological standpoint)? Isn't the point of Darwinian evolution that only time will tell? The analogous big question being, "How do you know humans will always be morally higher than germs?"
And I don't think its the case that he's saying simply that "science ... can support ethics." He says, "We're at last dealing with morals on the basis of reason." Unless science is synonymous with reason, Pirsig's saying something more grandiose. And if science _is_ synonymous with reason, then I would charge him with making the same mistake as the logical positivists: putting science up on a epistemological pedestal and leaving art to rot--that is until the MoQ came along, of course. The pragmatist approach is to not put _anything_ up on a pedestal, thus dissolving the whole issue. This is what I see Pirsig trying to do in most of ZMM and why people like Glenn Bradford used to get so upset. I agree with Glenn in the limited sense that we both think that a "science of morals" is a pointless pipedream, one I'm not even sure we should wish for.
And where does he say, "When the distance between patterns, in evolutionary terms, is shorter he says it is not as clear but that the MOQ can help analysis of moral issues nonetheless"? Where are you getting your juice for spinning the passage that way?
No, when Pirsig says, "It's true for all people at all times, now and forever," I still only see some sort of transcendentalism. Because it nudges the door open enough for the skeptic to walk in and ask, "How do you know?" I'll grant you this, Paul: you have got me to see that I don't think Pirsig is saying (at this point) that _it always has been true_, before this particular point in time. That we've evolved historically to this point. But why put the kibash on evolution? Why think it will suddenly stop with us? That has always been the dream of metaphysicians, that we are the last stop on History's train ride. Metaphysics is in the business of hypostatizing current common sense, they take it as what was _always_ common sense. Those who accept an historical dialectic still run the risk of hypostatization by saying that it _will_ always be this way from now on. Metaphysicians look back on their ancestors and say they were wrong, that they, now, today, in this day a
nd age, are the last metaphysicians, trying to ignore the fear that their descendents will do the same thing that they did to their predecessors.
And this is just this one passage in Pirsig. There are more, though not as bad. And let me remind everyone: I'm not saying that Pirsig is or isn't a degenerate metaphysician (in the antipragmatist sense, not in any of the rehabilitated senses that many other people around here use) or is or isn't a good pragmatist. The one thing I've become convinced of in the last few years is that Pirsig is _far_ too ambiguous to say one way or the other. I say simply that he _sounds_ like a metaphysician sometimes, or he _sounds_ like a pragmatist at other times.
Matt
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