From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 10 2004 - 22:10:41 GMT
David, All,
David said:
I have just been reading some Berkeley the famous idealist. He argues for his version of idealism by rejecting the notion of being able to represent objects in the mind, that there is no way to distinguish between primary and secondary qualities, that all experience is phenomenal and that there is nothing we can gain access to with which to compare any represenations to. My more general question for you is what are the differences between pragmatism and idealism and why do you support one and not the other? And does this help to clarify how the MOQ is to be understood?
Matt:
This relates directly to the air of seriousness surrounding philosophy that I talked about. Pragmatists are good phenomenalists and Berkeley did give pragmatists some good dialectical tools for arguing with realists. But Berkeley succumbed to the urge to say that this is what's _really_ going on. Pragmatists don't know how anyone can say that. Idealism is on the same dialectical path from Plato to Dewey, one stage in which philosophers made good progress in kicking the metaphysical habit, but ultimately couldn't.
Does this clarify the MoQ? I think it does insofar as we learn from the idealists' mistakes and not reify Quality or the MoQ. In other words, don't take it so seriously. The air of seriousness is hot and heavy in this forum, which is why it remains easy for me to pick fights. Some people are learning, though, even long-time enemies like DMB. My suggestion to people at this forum is to not take Pirsig so seriously. I think this forum is great. I think it generates great ideas. I think developing Pirsig's philosophy is great. I think refining the MoQ as a tool is great. But the tone with which people develop the MoQ is typically one of worship, that they wouldn't drop it for the world, not for anything. Everyone pays lipservice to the idea of dropping it as soon as a better tool comes around, but the seriousness comes out in trying really hard to make the MoQ the biggest tool ever, enveloping everything, saying something about everything. Trying to make the MoQ the
biggest tool ever just ends up making Pirsig the biggest tool ever. That's ultimately how ironists make fun of metaphysicians. We lounge around and say, "Dude, seriously, chill out."
Matt
p.s. I'm curious to see how many fights I pick with this post.
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