Hi Matt, You conlcuded "It is only by really caring, not only in what the other person is going to say, but in what they _want to say_--in more than a dialectical game of "Gotcha!"--that we are going to have quality conversations."
Agreed, and I must have "complained" about that "dialectical game of gotcha" a hundred times myself. Motivations matter and anyone whose motivation is to win an argument has missed the point. The point as you say is to achieve - by finding it or constructing it - mutual understanding. Analysis is only ever a means to that end, and never the point in itself. Ian On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Matt Kundert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I first gained whatever meager measure of notoriety in the MD from a post > many years ago in which I short-sightedly used a religious piety metaphor to > develop and layer some views I'd come to hold about Pirsig, philosophical > discourse, and practical conversation. People, however, took the metaphor a > lot more seriously than I did and some of what I was saying got lost in > translation. But the issue I was trying to highlight, and that I continue to > come back to frequently, is the interconnection between our philosophies and > our conduct, specifically our conduct in engaging other philosophers, and in > particular our conduct on the MD. > > Then, as now, my attention shifts in this direction when I see hang-ups in > present conversations, particularly ones I see as needless. We can draw > great patterns in the back-and-forth between major contributors, those whose > voice is heard frequently and loudly, and I have done so on many different > occasions. I would presently like to focus on a controversy that has floated > around Platt for as long as I have been here. Everybody, by now, knows the > pattern of Platt's argument: if you deny Absolute Truth, Platt will ask if > that truth you just stated is absolute. > > After watching Platt in conversation for years, it is unclear to me his > motivation for asking it. Motivation is very important in handling a > conversation because if you don't know why an interlocutor is asking a > question, you may perceive the substance of their question wrongly and so > offer an answer that is off the point they wished to make. Some participants > at the MD make it their business to obscure their motivations, which is their > prerogative, but it sometimes makes tedious conversation. What I've seen in > the pattern of Platt's conversation--which has the virtue of consistency, > making it easier to identify Platt's position--is a certain improvisational > quality in relation to his opponent over the question of relativism that has > made it difficult, on this question, to see why he's saying anything at all. > This has produced frustrations over the years. > > I came to terms with Platt's position some years ago when I finally saw its > overall pattern. Platt's position on truth stems from a specific attitude > about the nature of discourse, and specifically of assertion. This position > sees an assertion as something that, by its very nature of being an > assertion, requires what is asserted to have the status of something that is > true for everybody, everywhere, at all times. This position does not require > us to believe in a mythical being called "Absolute Truth" that hangs in the > sky at right angles to our vision. All it requires is the understanding of > assertion that says that "to assert" is to forward a competitor in the > marketplace of ideas, and the only non-sophistical reason for asserting one > idea over another is because you believe it to be the best idea, i.e. you are > betting that this idea will, in the fullness of time, defeat all comers. > > This view of truth has distant roots in Plato, but its more modern relation > is in Kant, which is extended by Peirce, and come back full force in Germany > with Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel. In this view, to assert that truth > is not absolute in some sense is to assert a position on _assertion_ that > denies your very act of asserting it. This is what Habermas called a > "performative contradiction": your performance contradicts what you are > saying in the performance. > > Finally understanding the roots of Platt's position, or anyone's for that > matter, allows us to engage with it fruitfully. Instead of going back forth > about "absolute truth," which is an ambiguous moniker that has a long history > of varied philosophical freight being attached to it, a conversation that > goes around in circles because everyone gets to just revert to their own > understanding of the constellation of terms and ideas that get associated > with it, instead of that conversation--which can be fun, but after you've had > it a few times you get bored--you can have a conversation that leads to > mutual understanding. Dialectical victory over a real, living philosophical > opponent is a rare thing. Far more often is it the case that all that can, > and should, be hoped for is a mutually shared understanding of the other > person's position. Habermas and Richard Rorty fruitfully disagreed over the > nature of assertion for years, but they did it fruitfully because they tried > desperat ely to find the core issue at which they were disagreeing and talk about it in a manner that hoped to elicit further enunciation and sophisticated articulation of their own position in relation to this fundamental disagreement. A core philosophical disagreement will extend out in waves over a philosophy until at the limits, it just seems on the surface that the other guy said something wrong or stupid. This is rarely the case, and the principle of charity, a principle of intellectual discourse that begs all sides to construe another's ideas in as favorable light as possible before finally judging them, requires it to never be the case. > > Platt isn't always the best at articulating his position, but as someone that > also has problems in communication, I feel acutely the pain of being > inarticulate and assuming a degree of responsibility over misunderstanding. > I'm as good a living example of the problems of conversation as they come: > I've used metaphors inadvisably; I've made arguments with missing > premises--and conclusions; I've written narratives that meander and bird-walk > without a point; I still write prosaically enough that it seems like you > should be able to understand it, but the content of which is fairly > unintelligible for all kinds of reasons, often having to do with the fact > that you haven't read enough of the same books as I have. And is that a good > reason? "To Read Matt's Posts, You Must Have Done the Following Required > Reading: 1) Rorty's Philosophy and the ...." > > We all have different motivations for coming here, different things we are > looking for, and we all have different styles, different voices, different > modes of engagement. Some are innocent soul-searchers, some hide in a sea of > irony. Some write autobiographically, weaving in examples from their life, > some stick to a play of abstract concepts. Some lack good grammar or a > spellchecker, some look like they just finished Freshman English. Some look > like they hit "Enter" randomly as they write. > > I don't think there is any right way to communicate, I don't think there is > any right way to write. I don't think there is any single thing called > "plain spoken" and I don't think we should be quick to judge a certain style > as lacking insight or wisdom. Every style is able to convey wisdom, it is > just a matter of finding out what. In my tenure at the MD, I've employed > just about every rhetorical format, genre, strategy, tactic, technique, > gesture and gambit. I've been condescending, sarcastic, conciliatory, > polite. I've obfuscated intention, innocently questioned, suggestively > probed, quickly damned and disregarded. I've told good jokes, bad jokes, > conceptual jokes, joke jokes. I've used commas, colons, semicolons, > parentheticals, ellipses, litotes. I've used metaphor, analogy, allegory, > alliteration, allusion, sleight of hand, stuff from Aristotle's Rhetoric that > I didn't even know I was doing. I've used arguments, made comparisons, told > stories, dropped names, cr eated long lists (a practice not done much anymore, since the time of Emerson, when most writings had first been speakings). > > I've done all these things for different reasons at different times, > sometimes self-consciously, sometimes unconsciously and habitually. The only > two forms I don't think I have employed (I even recently wrote a poem for > Marsha, though it was a sonnet and not the free verse most people write > around here) are the dialogue and stream-of-consciousness proem, the former > because it requires too much creativity on my part and the latter because I > lack the artful ability to mimic the lack of artful ability (some do it so > naturally, but it just seems so forced when I do it). > > I think the main post-it we should tag alongside our computer monitors for > when we read MD contributions is "aim for mutual understanding." Good > philosophical positions are intractable, which is itself a philosophical > position, so let me say to the more practical point--almost all living, > breathing philosophers are intractable in their core beliefs. Sometimes we > just don't know which beliefs we are holding are core, and philosophy helps > elicit that as our understanding of what we take to be important in > philosophy, and life, ebbs and flows. But we all know that most of the time, > in these conversations, with these conversational partners, there are a lot > of feet stuck in the mud, a lot of dug-in trenches. Whenever you encounter > one, whenever you think to yourself, "God, that person is just being stubborn > about X!", just remember that if someone else is being stubborn about X, that > means you are being stubborn, too. The question then is: what do you do now? > How do you m ove forward? > > Much of the philosophy that occurs here, and with good reason, is what the > Greeks called eristic, virtuoso displays of dialectical agility that focus > polemically on the current opponent. I think good philosophy should focus on > the current person you are talking to, but if it is to have lasting value, it > needs to say something to a wider audience than that. If we apply charity to > each other's writings, we will make this process easier, as we rise above > possible mistakes or indefensible wrong turns to the core matters that, well, > matter. We need to ruminate on the best possible version of what a person > says, as we are sometimes inarticulate and still searching for what that best > possible version is. It is only by really caring, not only in what the other > person is going to say, but in what they _want to say_--in more than a > dialectical game of "Gotcha!"--that we are going to have quality > conversations. > > Matt > _________________________________________________________________ > Change the world with e-mail. 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