dmb said to Steve:
I think you're trying to understand these issues from within SOM. I mean, the
distinction between what there is (ontology) and how we can know it
(epistemology) assumes a distinction between reality and experience that the
radical empiricist has rejected already.
Steve replied:
... I do think that epistemology always takes a dististinction between knower
and known for granted. Epistemology does not need to be SOM in taking the
subject-object ontological distinction as fundamental and given by reality, but
I think it is always "SOE" (subject-object epistemology) in taking the
subject-object distinction as a useful one for the purpose of talking about how
we may be justified in believing what we believe. I think saying SOE is
redundant since epistemology always includes SO. ... if we are doing
epistemology, I can't see how we are not using the concepts of knower and
known. ...
dmb says:
Maybe you think this is just a game of "gotcha" but I'm telling you that you
will never understand the MOQ until you drop this definition of epistemology.
Again, to say that epistemology ALWAYS includes subject and objects is like
saying astronomy ALWAYS includes the search for crystalline spheres. Again, you
and Rorty are defining the question in terms of the failed answer. See, the
difference is that Rorty defines epistemology in terms of SOM and then refuses
to do epistemology. Pirsig and James reject SOM, not epistemology. Big
difference. Please allow me to present my evidence again, since you deleted
from your reply as is your habit. You scoundrel, you.
"A casual reader may think James is careless in the way in which he shifts from
'experience' to 'reality' but this is NOT a sign of loose terminology or
confusion. It reflects James's doctrine of 'pure experience' where the
traditional distinctions between 'experience' and 'reality' are broken down."
(Burkhardt's emphasis, p. xxvi)
"The story of modern epistemology, which can be written in terms of a
refinement of questions concerning what is 'in' the mind and what is 'outside',
is the story of implausible answers to a poorly formulated query. The dichotomy
which is taken as so obvious between consciousness or mind and what is
'outside' of our minds is completely specious. There is only a continuous
reality or experience which we TAKE in different ways." (Burkhardt's emphasis,
xxvii)
"The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the
Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of subjects and objects, which
are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of Quality!" (ZAMM 239)
"Now it comes! Because Quality is the GENERATOR of the mythos. That's it.
That's what he meant when he said, 'Quality is the continuing stimulus which
causes us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of
it'. Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent
RESPONSES to Quality, and among these are responses is an understanding of what
they themselves are."
Steve replied:
I take the above to be irrelevent here because it is about ontology rather than
epistemology.
dmb says:
Oh, please. We can hardly talk about one without talking about the other. And
the Burkhardt quotes (that you deleted) explain why that is especially true for
the radical empiricist, who rejects ontological dualism in order to reformulate
epistemology as something that is NOT about the relations between those
rejected ontological categories. To break down these distinctions is thee
central idea in radical empiricism.
Steve said:
As I've said before, I think radical empiricism is useful for making this
attack on subject-object ontology, but is not useful for
epistemology--answering the question, as you put it, "how we can know it." I
think we can drop the "it" by saying something like "how we can be justified in
our beliefs" (a formulation that avoids correspondence notions of truth) but
never the "we" when talking about epistemology.
dmb says:
It attacks the subject-object ontology precisely because such a dualism creates
an artificial concept of what knowledge is. That is the picture in which the
correspondence theory makes sense, in which there is a gap between the
subject's experience and the objective reality he wants to know about. This is
what radical empiricism rejects as an artificial conception of the relation
between knower and known which all sorts of theories had to be invented to
overcome. Those were epistemological theories, of course, and radical
empiricism is overturning all that. With the rejection of SOM, everything
changes. Words like "truth", "reality", "experience" and "epistemology" can no
longer be understood in terms of SOM or if they are, you'll be totally confused
as to the meaning of radical empiricism and the MOQ. And it certainly doesn't
help that you're trying to get at this through the eyes of Rortyism because he
does understand those words in terms of SOM.
Oh, and I think it's quite all right to use terms like "it", "we", "I" and
other normal words when discussing these things. It might be possible to
express that ideas without using any such terms but it would probably result in
some very strange sentences. Using such terms does not entail any ontological
commitments, especially when you use them to talk about the rejection of
certain commitments.
dmb said:
... Instead of having a knower and a thing to be known, the central distinction
is between two kinds of knowing, between two kinds of experience, namely
dynamic and static. There is the stream of experience and then there are the
conceptual buckets we TAKE from it. Subjects and objects are in the buckets.
Conversation, intersubjective agreement and all our vocabularies are in the
buckets too. Even the MOQ, as a system of ideas, can only be so many buckets
from the stream.
Steve replied:
You still haven't gotten around the "we" that is doing the taking even though
"we"'s ontological status is demoted in this image of knowing as merely "in the
buckets." My point is still, if "we" weren't part of this imagine of knowing at
all, we couldn't be said to be talking about knowledge.
dmb says:
Well, the idea is that we "knowers" are not ontologically distinct from what
can be "known". What's known is experience. How can "we" be ontologically
distinct from our own experience? Again, for the radical empiricist reality is
not the cause of our experience, it IS our experience. The distinction between
pure experience and conceptual experience is the distinction between Dynamic
Quality and static quality. That defines the limits of reality. The idea of an
external physical environment is just that, an idea. Yes, it's a very good idea
most of the time. It has great pragmatic value and that's why SOM can be
counted as one of the paintings in our pluralistic gallery of truth. It agrees
with experience and it works, but there is a downside and when you think it is
the very structure of reality rather than just a good idea and you want to
develop a theory of truth with that as your basic assumption, then you've got
serious problems.
Steve said:
What I think is gained for epistemology in dropping the subject-object
ontological picture is the idea that we don't HAVE to do epistemology, i.e.
take the knower/known relationship for granted. When we find problems with our
epistemological ideas (some Platypi), we can go back and question the
hypothesis of the believer that lies behind all our epistemological ideas which
was accepted only for the sake of argument to see how far it goes. This is
where Matt's comment that "I think we have...reason to think that Pirsig goes
back and forth [between epistemology and ontology] as the occasion demands."
dmb says:
Not sure what you're saying here but it's pretty clear that ontology and
epistemology go together and are interrelated, for example the way the
correspondence theory is about getting the subject's beliefs to correspond with
the objective reality. Naturally, if you reject the idea that the former is a
different kind of thing than the latter, then there is no epistemic gap between
them and the question of knowledge or truth MUST be framed differently. The
meaning of the "truth" will no longer be conceived in terms of "objective"
truth or "eternal" truth or any kind of "Truth" with a capital "T". Instead,
"truth" has a practical, empirical, operational, functional, instrumental
meaning and it is tested and justified only in those terms. It no longer has
anything to do with representing reality or mirroring reality. Now it's about
working in reality. It adds to reality. It's something we make for a purpose
and is considered good and true to the extent that it serves that purpose.
This doesn't mean we're off the hook with respect to coherence, logic,
evidence or any else like that, of course, because that's very much part of
what it means for an idea to "work". I mean, intellectual truths are just as
operational as truths we use for motorcycle maintenance even though the tools
aren't as heavy.
Usually, ontology is going to come first. That's where the ground is, so to
speak, for epistemology. Or, if you start with epistemology the questions
quickly turn to the conditions that make experience possible and that brings
you right back to ontology again. But James and Pirsig don't get on that
merry-go-round. Dynamic Quality is not a thing or a substance. Pirsig says it
is an event. He calls it the primary empirical reality and the cutting edge of
experience, right? Likewise, James begins with a "world" of pure experience,
which is not yet mind nor matter. For these guys, undifferentiated
(pre-conceptual) experience is as close as you get to a ground, as close as you
get to an ontology. For these guys, ontological categories are always going to
be secondary and conceptual. This picture makes it harder to reify our
conceptual understandings, and I think that is all that ontologies have ever
been; reifications. We invent these abstractions and then mistake them for
ontolog
ical or existential realities. I think the radical empiricism also goes
against what Pirsig calls the metaphysics of substance. Substance, especially
the physical kind, is one of those gods that most still worship but these guys
know it's a ghost.
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