Hey SA, Matt said: I don't struggle with radical empiricism per se. The part that strikes me as odd is how the notion of "pure experience" even survives once one becomes a pragmatist/radical empiricist. If we follow Dewey in thinking there's no difference between experience and reality (which I take to be the purest articulation of the contention of radical empiricism), then how does one wedge in a difference between pure and unpure experience/reality, one that doesn't look like the appearance/reality distinction? But more importantly, what would that distinction do if it wasn't leaning on the A/R distinction?
SA said: What is unpure experience? I understand your trying to point out a difference in what reality is, and how people come up with these different philosophies. If reality was experience, then why the differences, what's making the distinctions. I find it is where you place your focus. If you want to focus on A/R distinction, then so be it. Pure experience is pointing out something more that doesn't downplay appearance as non-reality. Appearance is just as acceptable as a reality as any other reality notion. It is this intellectual flexibility that is able to point this out, thus, a notion that is not coming from the A or just the R in the A/R distinction. Think of mu. Mu is intellectual enough to be understood, but it is not just A and not just R. Is this what your wondering about? Also, experience is not just an intellectual exercise in defining A or R. Experience is social, biological, and inorganic, and let us not forget how all of these change with events: dq. Matt: I appreciate your intercession, but I have to confess that I'm unsure of what direction you're coming from. The conversation DMB and I have been having is going on four years now, and much of it is shorthand, reference points and allusions to other parts of it. The gist is that if you have a notion of "pure experience," then you are going to need a notion of "unpure experience" because that's how contrasts work. In Pirsig, pure is DQ, which means unpure is static. The question is what the role of "unpure" is in describing static patterns of value. If experience and reality coincide as in Dewey's radical empiricism, then the old idea of experience having various levels of contact with reality (more or less direct/pure/etc.) should be out the window. I would have thought. But there still exists in Pirsig, and James, what seems to me a survival of an older philosophical vision that they are otherwise out to displace. The importance of this issue resides in Pirsig's insistence in coalescing Dynamic Quality with both "direct/pure experience" and "betterness" (not to mention "immediate"). The fact that I see it as problematic is a whole other thing. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Peek-a-boo FREE Tricks & Treats for You! http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
