[Ian] This is what I refer to as "there's a hole in my metaphysics". Every metaphysics has one - a starting point, something at least ineffable at it's boundary / foundation / core.
"Assumption" is a loaded pejorative word in rhetorical exchanges, and Platt is good at those ;-) But for those discussing the recent edition of in our time - interesting to note that even Newton's famous "laws" are strictly axioms stated without evidence or proof of any kind. Galilleo the builder without foundations, etc. Kepler too. A lot of this is quoted behind Nick Maxwell's drive to get even science to recognise that its foundations are much more flimsy than its empricist, objectivist obsession would suggest. [Krimel] This hole has a long history; we find it in a contemporary of Jesus', Agrippa, who listed five grounds for doubt. Assumption - The truth asserted is merely an hypothesis. What an assumption does is draw a line in the sand of infinite regression. If "assumption" is pejorative, synonyms like axiom, premises, suppositions may be less so. Assumptions should offer some reward for accepting them and the fewer you have to make the better. An assumption is essentially suspension of disbelief. It says that beyond this point the possibility of error is so remote or irrelevant that we can and should ignore it. An assumption rounds off infinity. Using a set of assumptions, we construct frameworks of thought. We are able to come to belief by suspending disbelief. If the assumptions themselves are challenged the whole structure is at risk. We will cling to the assumption or not, depending on how much we have invested in the over all structure. Science and religion ask for a different kind of commitment. They claim that the purity of their visions is a direct consequence of their assumptions. It is not the making of assumptions that is at issue it is the level of our commitment to them. Ron: What I like about the MoQ is that Pirsig grounds relativism in immediate experience anchoring the strongest of assumptions here. It gives relativism an ass to hang it's pants on. In this way certainty is defined as an Embodied Philosophy with the intellectual distinction illustrated well in Moravec's Paradox. Come to think of it the pro/con of relativism defines most of the MD discuss arguments for and against MoQ. The hole in the metaphysics of Quality is based squarely on millions Of years of evolution rather than thousands of years of intellectual Thought. Makes you look at certainty in assumption in a new light. 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/
