Hi Marsha,
What SOM premise does it 'imply' accepting?
It's the same issue that started the whole thing for Pirsig. The
question of whether values are subjective or objective is the same as
asking whether morality is relative or absolute. Pirsig denied this
distinction as a false choice in favor of a historical narrative of
the evolution of values.
I like 'man is the measure of all things' because it captures the
truth of
our dilemma. The MOQ says there can be many truths. What is that
if it
isn't relativism?
There are probably a whole lot of -isms that would apply such as
historicism, anti-foundationalism, or perspectivalism. In the context
of truth I think you could call it anti-essentialism, which is a
denial that there is an essence of a thing to be known in favor of
inexhaustible descriptions which relate a thing to other things. Lots
of descriptions can be simultaneously true while no particular
description could be said to be the essence of a thing any more than
any other.
If we take an evolutionary view as Pirsig does, we see intellectual
patterns as evolving form primitive grunts and scratches in the dirt
as tools that were used to achieve specific purposes rather than
attempts to represent reality. If we think of knowledge as a way of
using reality rather than a way of representing reality, we never
need to ask whether we have found the one true description of The Way
Things Really Are. We don't need to priveledge any particular
description as the true essence of a thing. We can just use whatever
descriptions are best suited to our purposes.
In this view, to know a thing is not to capture it's essence in
language but to be able to use it or put in in relation to some other
thing. For example, all there is to know about the table I am sitting
at is that certain sentences are true about it. It is brown, made of
woody, it is too short, it is composed of atoms, it is hard, it is
heavy, etc. We can write such sentences all day long. Which sentence
is the essence of the table? Do we need to list more? At what point
can we say that we have knowledge of the essence of the table if we
are to think that there is an essence to it to be known (Kant's Thing
In Itself)? Or are any of these intellectual patterns any more the
essence of the table than any other? If knowledge is about finding
good sentences to believe, and if sentences can only relate things to
other things, then it is impossible to think that there is an essence
of the table to be known that stands apart from its accidental
relations to other things. And if language is a way of using reality
rather than representing it, it is impossible to think that believing
the wrong sentences takes us out of touch with reality. It just means
we are using a hammer when a screw driver would better help us
achieve our desires.
We then see absolutism-relativism as a false choice between being out
of touch with something absolute or believing something that is
merely relative. We get out of the dilemma by denying that the
purpose of intellect is to represent reality at all and instead see
intellect from an evolutionary perspective as a way of using reality.
Best,
Steve
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