Ian said to dmb: And you continue to debate and contrast pure and impure forms of experience with the help of James and Dewey (and Pirsig). I probably sounded dismissive earlier when I suggested I couldn't really see what was so "radical" about radical empricism, but I guess I'm saying what was radical when James envisaged it doesn't seem so radical in a post-Pirsig light.
dmb says: It seems you're taking "radical" to mean something like "way outside the mainstream" but radical empiricism is a feature of mainstream pragmatism. It is radical in the sense of going to the roots of experience, excluding no experience, adding nothing to experience and in equating reality with experience. In that sense, their empiricism is as radical as it gets. This differs from traditional empiricism, which says experience is how we can know the world. Radical empiricism says experience IS the world. Ian said: Radical empricism or not, this is ultimately a pragmatism where, as you quote Dewey saying, the distictions may be moot, and the consequences that follow are what really matter. Consequences rely on communication - interactions and/or language. dmb says: The distinctions still matter. I think it would be quite insane and impossible to do any kind of philosophy, or have a conversation with a human being, without distinctions and lots of them. The idea is simply that illusions are no less real than our so-called clear-eyed views. They're both experiences that really happen. But the differences and distinctions still obtain and for practical reasons. An actual oasis in the desert will provide actual water while a mirage can't provide anything but disappointment. The difference is known by the consequences, which is literally a matter of life and death in this case. As the pragmatist construes it, true ideas are so because they successfully guide future actions. Definitions, distinctions and ideas play a different role and are no longer expected to properly mirror reality, but there is no less need for them in pragmatism. Ian said: ...Pragmatically though, communication of subject/object interactions through higher level subject/subject language or mental represetation must involve concepts. That's where the (consequential) action is. dmb says: Huh? _________________________________________________________________ Boo! Scare away worms, viruses and so much more! Try Windows Live OneCare! http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/trial.aspx?s_cid=wl_hotmailnews 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/
