On Aug 27, 2009, at 1:26 PM, X Acto wrote:
See, I think this was Daves beef,
Rorty did'nt have betterness and value
to support his claims so his ideas were
colored as a kind of relativism.
Hi Ron,
Pirsig doesn't have any sort of copyright on "betterness."
From Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope:
"Pragmatists do not believe there is a way things really are. So they
want to replace the appearance-reality distinction by that between
descriptions of the world and ourselves which are less useful and those
which are more useful. When the question 'useful for what?' is pressed,
they have nothing to say except 'useful to create a better future.'
When they are asked, 'Better by what criterion?', they have no detailed
answer, any more than the first mammals could specify in what respects
they were better than the dying dinosaurs. Pragmatists can only say
something as vague as: Better in the sense of containing more of what
is good and less of what is bad. When asked, 'And exactly what do you
consider good?', pragmatists can only say with Whitman 'variety and
freedom,' or with Dewey, 'growth.' 'Growth itself,' Dewey said, 'is the
only moral end.'"
"The are limited to such fuzzy and unhelpful answers because what they
hope is not that the future will conform to a plan, will fulfil an
immanent teleology, but rather that the future will astonish and
exhilarate. Just as fans of the avant garde go to art galleries wanting
to be astonished rather than wanting to have some specific expectation
fulfilled..."
"So if Whitman and Dewey have anything in common, it is their
principled and deliberate fuzziness. For principled fuzziness is the
American way of doing what Heidegger called 'getting beyond
metaphysics.'
That sounds a lot like dynamic quality to me, and it sounds like Pirsig
and Rorty have a lot in common.
"Principled fuzziness." Do you like that?
Best,
Steve
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/
