From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 17 2004 - 20:49:47 GMT
Paul said:
Because if a germ evolved into a higher organism than a human it would no longer be a germ, it would be an animal or something new.
Matt:
I thought you might take that ethnocentric line. I thought about it myself. But the language Pirsig uses still seems too ambiguous, too transcendental, too ahistorical, too scientistic.
I don't know, something to think about.
Paul said:
Science is a formal application of reason. I don't think it is synonymous.
Matt:
BLeh. Saying "Science is a formal application of reason" is close enough to saying the two are synonymous for pragmatists. Pragmatists typically think of reason and rationality as the ability to remain conversable or as the ability to follow a series of inferences. If you are saying simply that the "scientific method" is simply the more methodical "application" of what people normally do every second of the day on the scientists chosen material, then pragmatists would happily agree to such a de-divinization. Of course, that means there would be an analogous "literary method," which would simply be the more methodical "application" of what people normally do every second of the day on the literary critics chosen material. At this point it becomes a little silly to speak of a "method."
Paul said:
The nature of the conflicts *usually* *seemed* to be clearer.
Matt:
Sounds good.
Paul said:
I think he is a pragmatic metaphysician.
Matt:
I still don't see why we have to live with such a contradiction. If humans tend to smooth out contradictions when they come to them, why insist on this one? Why stop at this one and say, "Well, that's just the way it is." To me it just means you haven't tried hard enough yet. Time has smoothed out other contradictions, why should we stop now? (This line of questioning being analogous to the line I took earlier with metaphysicians hypostatizing current common sense.)
Matt
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