Matt K and y'all:
Thanks for trying to explain that paragraph but its still a riddle to me and
think I'd rather just let it go.
DMB said previously:
I understand that you have no objection to metaphysics when it only means a
coherent picture or framework, But I still want to say the same thing about
your version of the MOQ. I mean, you seem to dismiss all the main features of
the framework and seem to have disagreements with all the central terms so that
even in a non-Platonic sense the metaphysics amputated.
Matt replied:
No, you can't have it both ways. If you say "Yes, I understand that you have
no objection to metaphysics," then that's it: you have to rescind your pithy
formulation of what's wrong with my account of Pirsig. I _don't_ take the
metaphysics out of Pirsig because "metaphysics" on both of our accounts is "a
general framework." And you just said that I don't do that. You can have all
sorts of other objections, but if you want a useful dialogue and not just
shouting, you have to be able to move forward from agreement.
dmb says:
I'm not shouting. Does it seem like I'm shouting? I do feel kind of unheard so
maybe you're right. Anyway, I'm saying that your take on some very key features
of the MOQ constitutes a rejection of its general framework. I mean radical
empiricism and pure experience - oops, I mean Quality above all. But if I
recall you don't have much use for the levels either. And Zen's not really your
thing. Mysticism? Taoism? Sorry, friend but I think Rortyized pragmatism is
wonder bread by comparison and I'm afraid your moves would bleach the MOQ.
Matt said:
The distinction between "had" and "known" experience: I have no problem with
that distinction. Never have. This is the distinction I've elaborated as
Rorty's distinction between the "space of causes" and the "space of reasons".
Knowledge (or at least, propositional knowing-that) occurs within the logical
space of reasons, of language, of reflective experience, which is different
than having an experience, being caused to move your arm because it was on a
stove and having a reason to move your arm ("It was hot!"). (I'll just
register here that I don't understand your problem with causation, which you've
shown every time I bring this Sellarsian distinction up: I thought Pirsig
showed us how to move back and forth between causation and pre-conditional
valuation.)
dmb says:
Well, introducing the term "causes" into a discussion of "had" does raise some
problems and I don't think they are just rhetorical. They're conceptual. The
shift to "spaces of causes" seems to defy the central point of the hot stove
example, James's description of pure experience and all the other ways the
"had" experience is described in all the terms borrowed from all the various
scholars. Now, I don't know a thing about Sellars or what he meant by it, I'm
just responding to what you've said. It looks to me like you've converted the
primary empirical reality into the autonomic nervous system or something. I'm
saying this is neither a Platonic nor a biological concept.
DMB said:
Other pairs of terms that make the same contrast are ...all descriptive and are
all similar in that description.
Matt replied:
Why are there so many things that say the same thing? ...each knife cut
represented by those dichotomies you've ushered out is slightly different. We
make choices about which ones we use--choices we make based on reasons.
dmb says:
Yes, each pair is slightly different. I'm choosing to use them all
interchanably because at this stage, where I'm trying to get the general idea
across, those differences don't matter. In fact, it would be very
counterproductive to get into the details before the basics are settled.
Matt continued:
I've tried elaborating reasons why I avoid most of the dichotomies you've
trotted out above and instead use other ones, ones that we could otherwise say
"make the same contrast."
dmb says:
As in the case above, your replacements usually strike me as reversals that do
not MEAN the same thing at all.
Matt continued:
You say these reasons are based on a Platonic understanding of things that
Pirsig already rejects. Fine, great--Pirsig doesn't mean the things I suspect
him of occasionally meaning. ...my reasons for avoiding certain terms and
construals of them (are) mostly based on their context in the history of
philosophy, a context you've oddly expressed you could care less about,
considering Pirsig cared quite a bit about it. Rather than taking your correct
inference that I'm avoiding Platonism as a broad agreement on strategy with
minor disagreements in tactics, you take the opportunity to register
supercilious indignation at my even writing.
dmb says:
I'm not sure if I'm capable of an emotion as fancy as "supercilious
indignation". I'm just irritated by the way your anti-Platonism is constantly
getting in the way of talking about the MOQ. You're right to see anti-Platonism
as an area of broad agreement from which we can sort out the minor differences.
Pirsig's anti-Platonism is the climax of the first book and is otherwise
central to his deconstruction of matter and causality and SOM, which is all
interrelated. I'm still stunned that anybody ever believed in such things as a
reality behind appearances. That's exactly why the anti-Platonist paranoia is
so damn annoying; because its so pointless, so irrelevant. If I use a term that
is associated with it in the history of philosophy, that probably just means
I'm speaking english. If we had to avoid all the tainted terms what would be
left? Besides, I simply don't know where the mines are buried. Isn't it enough
that I can simply tell you what I mean in my own way? This anti-Platonism has
been a conversation stopper for many moons and I'm telling you that it makes no
sense in this context.
Matt said:
This might be a good place to start the continuation of our dialogue, since I
was trying to meet you halfway terminologically. What is so wrong with this
formulation?
dmb says:
Somehow, you've reduced everything in the MOQ to instinct, even reflection. Its
in the same neighborhood as the "space of causes" move from Sellars. Its all
smells like warmed over positivism.
Matt said:
...But where in the slogan ("all awareness is a linguistic affair") does it
deny a non-linguistic experience?
dmb says
You've got to be kidding. If not you'd have to explain because that slogan
seems to deny most everything Pirsig says about Quality and one half of every
pair of terms of static and dynamic.
I'm not going to respond to any of the following but I leave it here as a
mighty fine example of pointlessly railing against Platonism in this context.
You say that understand that the claims are being made in a non-Cartesian
context but go on and on about its dangers anyway and complain about the term
"direct" for anti-Platonic reasons. You're arguing with somebody else about
some other thing, I guess. These complaints have no bearing on radical
empiricism or Pirsig's Quality....
Matt said:
I'm isolating this to point out that I think you are enacting a bad dialogue
practice, which is fairly endemic of your responses to me. I understand that
the had/known distinction is non-Cartesian. You, however, have switched in
that distinction as the gloss upon "direct/indirect" when that is not the
understanding of the latter distinction that I find rhetorically objectionable.
You will no doubt complain your gloss is perfectly clear in Pirsig and Dewey
and etcetera, but I want you to consider that people might be wearing
differently colored glasses than you, that they may have different
understandings of things, and that the functional beginning of a dialogue is
the supposition that two people _don't_ see eye to eye and therefore need to
talk things over, communicate. What you are practicing is a kind of
communication that short-circuits the dialogue by imposing your grid of
understanding on all things, which makes everyone else seem very muddled indeed.
>
> That may seem like what I do, but I'd like to suggest that my practice (when
> I'm doing it well) is to show the route between two people's ways of saying
> things.
>
> To reiterate my qualms with the rhetoric of "indirect/direct": the
> experience/reality distinction made it possible to say that some experiences
> were direct experiences of reality and some were indirect, cloudy, off, bad.
> Collapsing the experience/reality distinction makes that dichotomy lose its
> old point. You can redesign the significance and deployment of the
> distinction: but I'm talking about my qualms (qualms that have resonance
> inside Pirsig's texts, I might add). And if I agree with the "had/known,"
> then who the hell cares whether I accept any of the other ones, especially
> considering you were the one that just said: "The terms used to make that
> distinction are of secondary importance at best." Excuse me, but your
> argumentative practice begs to differ. And, while I agree with you on one
> level, on another level, our dialectical terms--the terms we use in an
> argument--do matter because as Pirsig taught us, dialectic rests on rhetoric.
> The rhetoric we deploy makes a difference. The rhetoric of purity, in my
> estimation, is a bad rhetoric to use and we should be willing to slap James
> on the wrists for it.
>
> Resisting _that_ is what bothers me. A pointless priggery that lovers of
> Pirsig's philosophical individualism would do well without.
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