From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 24 2004 - 18:48:55 GMT
Dear Wim,
I apologize for aiding and abetting in your frustration, but I mean what I say, I just don't think its as strange and debilitating as most people do. Locke conceived of the philosopher as an "underlaborer," removing the conceptual debris. Hegel called philosophy "painting grey on grey." Both Wittgenstein and Stanley Fish said that after philosophy gets done, nothing's really changed, i.e. none of our actual practices have changed, only our conceptions of them. This is how I view philosophy. With this in
mind, I can attend to some of your well-put frustration.
Wim said:
What about defining 'pragmatism' as 'self-denying metaphysics/philosophy/vocabulary'...?
Matt:
Naturally, no. This was obviously a joke, but there are good reasons for me being a little distraught about such characterizations, particulary the last two. Pragmatism would never deny being a philosophy or a vocabulary. It does deny being a metaphysics. The denial and two affirmations depend, though, like all things, on how you define the key terms, which is where we turn to:
Wim said:
You criticize metaphysical answers on metaphysical questions as 'leaping out of experience'. When countered that your criticism implies other metaphysical answers on these metaphysical questions, you immunize your criticism by defining away the problem: 'metaphysical' questions suppose by definition an appearance/reality distinction and should be ignored by pragmatists.
Matt:
This is moreorless true, but the reason why tells us more about discourse then it does anything in particular about the pragmatist's denial. What pragmatists optimially do is sort out the language we use and search for the key metaphors that are the engine for a particular thought. Pragmatists (in the relevant sense) from Nietzsche and James to Habermas, Derrida, and Davidson look over the history of philosophy and read the books with an eye for finding these metaphors. When they find them, they ask, "Are
these metaphors worth their salt?" One of the key metaphors that pragmatists think is driving Western philosophy is the appearance/reality distinction. They say that people who rely on such a metaphor are attempting for what Putnam calls a "God's-eye point of view," what Dennett calls a "skyhook," what Nagel (approvingly) calls the "view from nowhere." They are, as I said, attempting to leap out of experience to a point from which they can then criticize experience.
Pragmatists suggest we drop the metaphor, that we find other metaphors from which to do our intellectual work, to drive our language. When you suggest that pragmatists are assuming an appearance/reality distinction whether they like it or not, that such a distinction is impossible to circumvent, you are begging the question (i.e., "Is the language we speak optional?") and changing the conversation back to one the pragmatists do not wish to partake in. When you define "metaphysics" in a way that circumvents the
appearance/reality distinction, then you yourself have already become pragmatic in this limited sense. What really is at issue is not how we define "metaphysics," but the language we use, the metaphors that drive the conversation. If you eschew the same metaphors as pragmatists, then there's no disagreement or problem, aside from some residual confusion. Over the course of the last year, I think I've gone quite far in trying to dispel this confusion.
I do criticize metaphysics for "leaping out of experience." The immunization occurs because we are talking past each other. We are engaged in two different conversations. When I criticize metaphysics, I'm not criticizing you because you purportedly have no truck with the relevant metaphor. When you criticize me for doing metaphysics, the criticism has no force because I would never deny doing metaphysics in your sense, only in my sense.
This is all banking on the fact that you've become pragmatic in the relevant sense. I'm not sure that you have, given the continued desire to have old-fashioned metaphysical questions answered, but given that I'm not sure how you would answer them, you still may be nonmetaphysical. I only criticize those who fall into a limited range of metaphors. If they do, I'll let them know. If they don't, then they don't and there's no problem.
Wim said:
Alternatives you proposed were 'philosophy', which you (not I) defined as 'seeing how things hang together', and 'vocabulary' (defined by you as 'a systematic arrangement or organization of your beliefs'). When I follow your definition, you start telling me that philosophy either doesn't make much of a difference, or should be relegated to the private realm. Organizing one's beliefs should not be done with metaphysical questions. The way people actually do it is quite trivial and personal. In other words (mine):
people's beliefs aren't arranged that systematically and are quite unorganized. What's makes a real difference (for doing the real, social stuff that's needed) is a shared 'political vocabulary' and/or one that's based on 'the belief in democracy and the desire to minimize cruelty in the world'.
Matt:
Well, I wish I hadn't agreed to saying that a "vocabulary" is a "systematic arrangement or organization of your beliefs." That seems a very odd thing for me to say.
What I mean about philosophy is what I said above about Locke, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Fish. Their point is that philosophy isn't a very good instrument of change. What philosophy does is change the way we think about things, though it is quite possible we won't actually change the way we do things. The line between thinking and doing is fuzzy and pragmatists like Rorty and myself do think that, for instance, accepting the pragmatist picture of life proposed in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity will help in
the long run. But as far as fixing the problems of today, we don't think it will help terribly much. As I said to Anthony a week or so ago, Rorty himself would choose Michael Moore over Rortyan philosophy as a better tool for helping the underclass, not because Rortyan philosophy is debilitated or worthless, but because all philosophy pales in comparison to the short-term help Moore's documentaries do.
Philosophy, like religion, should be privatized because of the tenets of liberalism: we want a flowering diversity, not state-mandated commensuration.
As a pragmatist, I don't think one should organize their beliefs around metaphysical questions, but hey, that's me. As a liberal, I think you can do whatever you want in your free time.
This "the way people actually do [organize their beliefs] is quite trivial" thing is starting to bother me because I tried to clear up what I meant, but I don't think you understand what I mean. I'm not saying that the way you, Wim, organize your beliefs is trivial as compared to, say, me. I'm saying that the way everyone organizes their beliefs is very personal and idiosyncratic and _therefore_ trivial _compared_ to the agreement we share as free democratic citizens. Its the differences between us that are
trivial. For instance, that you organize your beliefs around metaphysical questions and I don't is trivial compared to our agreement that freedom of speech is required for us to be free citizens.
The difference between the pragmatist and the metaphysician is that the metaphysician _doesn't_ think the philosophical differences between us are trivial. This is why I still smell the taint of Platonism on both you and Pirsig. I wholeheartedly agree when Pirsig says in ZMM that we need to make higher Quality decisions. That's an expression in Pirsig's own idiom that any and every pragmatist can agree to. But when Pirsig's supporters go on to suggest (which Pirsig lends comfort to in Lila) that his own
beautifully idiosyncratic idiom, his own project of self-creation and perfection, will have profound public consequences if we would all just accept it, pragmatists pull back.
This is why I try and create as many bridges between Pirsig and other philosophers as possible and why I think some people are so vehemently against it. The people who like colligating Pirsig with other of their favorite philosophers are people who enjoy Pirsig's poetic act, but think him one of many, a sign of the times, creative and original, but not standing alone. The people who isolate Pirsig are people who revere Pirsig's prophetic message, that he is in touch with something everyone else has missed,
that he has gotten something _right_ and that to ignore it is to get everything _wrong_ and condemn the world to degeneracy. This is obviously heavily dramatized, but I think its what's sitting behind Sam, Scott, and my reaction to Pirsig on the one hand and Bo, Mark, and Platt's reaction on the other.
In sum, I don't think most people's beliefs are organized systematically, nor do I think they need to be. But I don't think this means they are necessarily unorganized. Most people's beliefs are organized in some respect, some better, some worse, but I don't think this has anything to do with the conversation we've been having. Sure I think people's beliefs should be organized, this being the goal I take it of critical thinking. But A) I don't see what this necessarily has to do with philosophy and B) I
don't see that this means we all need to organize our beliefs like everyone else does.
Wim said:
If I would follow you in that move and would say, 'well, o.k., let's see if we can formulate a shared political vocabulary, based on a belief in democracy and the desire to minimize cruelty in the world' that utilizes as best as possible Pirsig's ideas (interpreting them in a way that makes him into a pragmatist), you will probably back out again by relegating philosophy, formulating shared vocabulary or whatever you want to call it now to a 'private realm'.
Matt:
I think you moreorless have the general drift. The idea is that I don't think there is anything special about Pirsig's idiom, the vocabulary he developed. I think its great and I use it, but that's in philosophical conversations. In political conversations, its irrelevant where our belief in "democracy and the desire to minimize cruelty in the world" came from, be it God, Law, Reason, Quality, or Mars aliens. What matters is that we have that belief. We can then work from there on trying to realize that
belief.
You keep talking about trying to create a shared vocabulary, when as far as I can tell, we already predominantly have the relevant shared vocabulary at our disposal.
Wim said:
I'm getting frustrated. What the hell CAN we do on this list (Isn't this by its nature public and not private?) to contribute to social stuff that needs done, to democracy and against cruelty, to the feeding, clothing and housing of people? Do Pirsig's ideas (or those of Rorty, or any ideas at all) have any relevance to really doing something useful? Is this list just a playground to let ourselves go in an irrelevant, trivial, private hobby?
Matt:
My and many other's here answer to the first question if that this list won't really contribute to "social stuff that needs done," nor should it really be expected to because the answer to your parenthetical rhetorical question is that, as I've been utilizing the terms, this isn't a public forum, its a private forum. In this sense of the two terms, a public forum would be one devoted to politics and other public things. This forum is devoted to Robert Pirsig. That's how I see the line drawn.
The answer to your second question is that yes, Pirsig and Rorty's ideas are do someting useful. They can be extraordinarily useful for our own personal, private obsessions, for dispelling our inner demons and, in the long run, for giving us a language that will less problematically allow us to realize our public and private hopes and dreams.
The answer to your third question is that this is a playground for an extremely relevant, terribly nontrivial, and horribly private hobby. It is relevant and nontrivial because it is relevant _to me_, it is nontrivial _to me_. It is, afterall, my hobby, my obsession, what I do on the weekends and at work on my breaks (or even when I'm supposed to be working, like right now).
Wim said:
Or are you just playing a game with me? Making a sport of avoiding to 'bite' and 'biting' only occasionally for whatever private reason you may have?
Matt:
As many would have it here, I'm just running around in circles with no rhyme or reason. The game I'm actually playing is that of showing why the circle the pragmatist runs around in is better than the circle the metaphysician runs around in. The fact that not everyone agrees that we are simply running in circles is just one of the difficulties and differences in circles.
I have a couple of private reasons for playing this game. One is that I like Pirsig and hate to see turned to evil, metaphysical designs. Another is that, like Rorty and most ironist theorists, I was once a metaphysician myself. We play this game to both keep the darkness of metaphysics at bay in our own lives and to hopefully free others from the darkness.
Wim said:
I DO maintain ... that formulating for others what they want (i.e. operating intellectually in the public sphere) is essential in the way in which we people organize that people get what they want.
Matt:
Well, as long as what you are talking about is good ole' persuading people of public policies that will help the poor and disadvantaged, I agree. If it means "formulating for others what they want" like the Communists formulated what people want, then I can't agree. The gist is that, yeah, I've never disagreed that intellectuals have a responsibility in trying to convince the public of the good of certain public policy ideas. Grass roots revolutions sound great, but they aren't going to happen, at least not
bloodlessly. Top-down initiatives are what are needed.
But the whole idea of "formulating for others what they want" is worded scarily and should be caveated heavily.
Wim said:
You can't be serious that the only relevant ideas on the social level are those about democracy and cruelty, can you? Sure, re-organizing beliefs, creating shared vocabularies, answering abstract questions for the sake of practising and thereby maintaining those shared vocabularies etc. don't revolutionize society in the same speed as intellectual evolution. They are relatively marginal and trivial from a social perspective. But they DO enable a slow migration of social patterns of value towards ... whatever.
They enable social progression.
Matt:
Wim, honestly, I'm not sure that we disagree on all that much. I think we only disagree about whether we should be answering old-tyme metaphysical questions. I think we are predominately talking past each other, using different idioms at cross-purposes.
Matt
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