On 2/6/2010, 2:31 PM, DMB wrote (to Marsha):
As I understand it, the MOQ agrees with contextualism
(we're suspended in language) and it agrees that these contexts
are constructed (analogy upon analogy) but it says these contexts
are not constructed arbitrarily (Quality is not arbitrary or
capricious) and the pragmatic theory of truth does not abandon
empirical restraints (it has to agree with experience and function
in experience). These non-linguistic constraints distinguish the
MOQ from this relativism.
Marsha replied:
Where does the MoQ agree with contextualism? I thought
the MoQ agreed with Protagoras' Measure Doctrine.
Arbitrary and capricious? Is 'arbitrary and capricious' your
definition of relativism?
DMB explains:
All of the stuff I put in parentheses references Pirsig quotes.
I can't tell you what page it is where Pirsig agrees with the notion
that "we're suspended in language", where Pirsig says our world
is built of analogies, where Pirsig says that Quality is "not arbitrary
or capricious". But you've seen them. You know they're in there.
And how can you ask about the measure doctrine as if I hadn't
just quoted Pirsig on that? He said virtue "was absolutely central
to their teaching, but how are you going to teach virtue if you teach
the relativity of all ethical ideas?" and "QUALITY! VIRTUE!
DHARMA! THAT is what the Sophists were teaching!
NOT ethical relativism."?
But anyway, around here truth is the pragmatic truth.
It's provisional, self-correcting and grounded out in actual
experience. Truth and falsity are what happens to an idea
in the course of experience. It's contextual and perspectival
but reality, which is to say experience, has a way of keeping us
honest and that's what prevents the MOQ from being a relativism.
Gav asks:
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 [it] might be 'context-dependent'.
Plato: good is relative; truth is absolute
Pirsig: truth is relative; good is absolute
Is this summary accurate?
David is, indeed, splitting hairs. But so is Pirsig, by making Plato's
Virtue a different sort of "good" than pragmatic or empirical truth.
This whole discussion, in my opinion, hinges on what one believes is the
nature of Experience. David says "reality, which is to say experience, has
a way of keeping us honest and that's what prevents the MOQ from being a
relativism." But that's because he believes Experience=Reality (in the
universal or objective sense). I suspect that Marsha and Gav believe that
Experience is subjective, which makes "man the measure" of Goodness, hence
supporting the relativity (or provisional nature) of empirical truth.
The argument that "we're suspended in language" is begging the question.
It's not the context of language that determines the validity of truth; it's
experience. And experience is not universal but relative to the individual.
What "keeps us honest" in our precept of experiential truth is the
universality of empirical principles. The question we need to ask is: are
Quality, Goodness and Virtue "absolute truths"? Plato says no, Pirsig says
yes. But if Experience=Reality, then Quality (moral or esthetic goodness)
cannot be absolute because experience is relative to the individual.
There is no "contextual" way around the fact that the reality of experience
is relational. THAT is an empirical truth. If you want or need to believe
that there's Absolute Truth, you have to extend your belief system beyond
experiential existence. In other words, you have to accept the metaphysical
concept that the source of experiential reality is absolute and
unconditional. Be forewarned, however. Because such a belief transcends
subject/object perspectives of Truth -- including the truth of Quality
itself -- it contradicts the fundamental premise of Pirsig's MoQ.
Essentially speaking,
Ham
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
dmb says:
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)
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