David M, I didn't really understand your explanation of "pure experience." I think I may just have a tin ear when it comes to "trying to talk about experience in non-SOM terms," because as far as I can see, getting rid of Platonism does pretty much all of that, and the big problem with SOM is for philosophers, not lay folk. That's the big place, I suppose, where I differ with Pirsig: I don't see SOM as a cultural problem of amazing magnitude. I consider it a philosophical problem of amazing magnitude, but a philosophical problem has never gotten in the way of me taking in a Cubs game or eating hot dog or dodging a tiger.
DM said: Is all knowledge linguistic? Matt: Yes. Why? Because I'm defining it as such, specifically to deal with problems about consciousness, concepts, universals and other Platonically inspired problems. It is easy enough to say that when your dog behaves the way it does, that when we say it "knows" that there's food on the other side of the door, we are treating by analogy, as one of us for the purposes of predicting its behavior. Like any of the multitude of things we say about computers. I'm not against saying that dogs know things, I'm just against the kind of muddying done by those, e.g., who think that direct intuition of reality bequeaths us concepts. DM said: I also think we are missing Dewey's discussion of the situations we find ourselves in, and that these present us with problems (as we value them) and possibilities (DQ) to change them, and it is through activity that we can knowledge not just chat. Matt: This is also where I differ from Rorty-bashers: I just don't see how what Rorty's saying precludes Dewey's notion that reflection occurs when a habit fails and we suddenly have a problem that needs to be solved. I guess maybe I just read Rorty, and maybe philosophy in general, differently than others. My experience of reading Rorty is that he attends to what he wants to attend to while being careful not step on the toes of people doing something different (rather than conflicting, like Platonists). Others think, mainly I think because they unconsciously suppose philosophers are required to have an opinion about everything, that Rorty isn't as careful. I don't know, hard to adjudicate that one, but from my point of view: Rorty revises some of Dewey, not all of Dewey. I just don't get the "just chat" charge. Too facile. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts! Play Star Shuffle: the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_oct 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/
