Gav said to dmb:
isn't this splitting hairs? i mean if truth is contextual and perspectival
isn't that a form of relativism? 'truth is relative'... another way of saying
that might be 'context-dependent'.
Ron chimed in:
after reading up on it, it seems the term "relativism" is mostly used as a
perjorative in the respect that it is a term for pragmatism used by those
positivists that do not understand the point that pragmatism is trying to make
about empiricism. It carries such a spector of meaning meaninglessness or
truthlessness when in fact it's more a statement about the plurality of truth
and how humans relate to those truths.
dmb says:
I really don't think this is a matter of splitting hairs. In fact, in making
the case against relativism and for the pragmatic theory of truth last week,
which took the form of making a case against Rorty and for the classical
empiricists, I was able to quote from two books that were largely aimed at
making the same case. Most of the explanations offered by Hickman, the director
of Dewey Studies and SIU and Hildebrand, one of the professors I'm studying
with, were not addressed so it would be okay with me if you wanted to look at
that and drag some of the quotes into it.
But let take a different approach. I was just looking at the pieces of Matt's
essay on SOM. I don't know if it was Bo or Matt who left it out, but a very
crucial piece of the story is missing. The whole book is structured around the
quest for Quality and yet that's exactly what's missing from the story. In the
post, the story is construed as a contest between Plato's absolutism and the
Sophist's relativism. Matt quotes a passage that SEEMS to support this view.
"Their object was not any single absolute truth, but the improvement of men.
All principles, all truths, are relative, they said. 'Man is the measure of all
things.' These were the famous teachers of 'wisdom', the Sophists of ancient
Greece." If Pirsig had stopped there, I might be able to go along with Matt's
reading but he didn't. In fact, Pirsig goes on to say the very opposite, that
they were NOT relativists and that coming to such a conclusion about the
Sophists doesn't make much sense.
On the next page (374) he says, "the one thing that doesn't fit what he says
and what Plato says about the Sophists is their profession of teaching VIRTUE.
All accounts indicate that this was absolutely central to their teaching, but
how are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all ethical
ideas?" He explores the issue for a couple of pages and then says, (377)
"Lightning hits! QUALITY! VIRTUE! DHARMA! THAT is what the Sophists were
teaching! NOT ethical relativism. NOT pristine 'virtue'. But ARETE. Excellence.
DHARMA! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before from. Before mind
and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first
teachers of the Western world were teaching QUALITY, and the medium they had
chosen was that of rhetoric. He has been doing it right all along." (Emphasis
is Pirsig's)
Now if that book is about Pirsig's quest for Quality and this anti-relativistic
passage is where he finally finds it, then it's a hell of a thing to leave out.
That reading quite literally takes the Quality out of the MOQ and converts it
instead to Rortyism or postmodern neopragmatism or linguistic idealism or
something that otherwise excludes the main idea. And in Lila, the conflict
between Richard Rigel and the captain is all about relativism. Pirsig had been
accused of relativism between the two books and part of what he's doing in Lila
is disputing that charge. That's why you find all that talk about moral codes
and how you can judge other cultures, not according to the standards of your
own culture of course but by assessing their contribution to the ongoing
process of life, how you can judge values according to their evolutionary
status, etc.
Or you could think of it in very broad terms. If the trick is to strike a
balance between static and dynamic, then absolutism is too static and
relativism is too dynamic. Too much rigidity prevents growth but so does too
much instability. And that's what you get with relativism, too much
instability. This is what you get when you take the view that there is nothing
outside the text, which is to say that words don't refer to anything except
other words. That is a very slippery situation and that's why people say Rorty
is a relativist. Those book I was quoting from are written by contemporary
pragmatists who think it's important to take issue with Rorty's assertions and
distinguish them from the assertions made by Dewey, James and other classical
pragmatists. I mean, the professionals don't think it's a matter of splitting
hairs. As Hildebrand puts it, Rortyism "eviscerates" Dewey's pragmatism. And
from there it's pretty easy to see that Rortyism eviscerates Pirsig's work in a
similar way.
Thanks,
dmb
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