But on a more serious note: On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 9:29 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
His notion that we need many cognizers is a reaction against Absolutism, > specifically the view that says human suffering doesn't mean much in the > long run. John: Well, would you say that from a Buddhist view, "human suffering doesn't mean much in the long run."? It's something we tend to focus upon, suffering, but there is a way of lifting one's perspective and not suffering as much - Buddhism promises a cessation of suffering, or it wouldn't attract anyone. dmb: > As the Absolute unfurled through the process of history, it was held, many > human being would die on "the slaughter bench of history". James thought > this view was morally outrageous and a "ghastly" "monument to > artificiality". To make his point he recounts a true story from the pages of > a newspaper. A clerk named John Corcoran got sick and lost his job as a > result. After three weeks, desperate for money, he took a job shoveling snow > but he was too weak from his illness and was forced to give it up after only > an hour. When he got home to his wife and six children, who were all hungry, > he found that he and his family had been ordered to leave their home for > non-payment of rent. The next morning he killed himself by drinking a glass > of carbolic acid. This particular example represents many similar cases of > human suffering, but > the Absolutists kept their optimistic eyes on the perfection toward which > the Absolute was headed. James tells this story and then offers quotes from > his Absolutist friends: > > In "The World and the Individual" Royce says, "The very presence of ill in > the temporal order is the condition of the perfection of the eternal order." > John: Just cuz you and Willy J don't got the cojones to wrestle with the deep problems of human evil, dave, don't make fun of Royce because he does. Maybe his answers fall short. Pirsig doesn't solve every single human conundrum this creative species can come up with neither, but a process- a way of getting there, and a faith in the concrete existence of a positive goal seem to me and Royce and James, to be Absolute goals - criteria for venturing along the moral path at all. At the basis of this critique, there seems to be an unexamined and assumed moral repugnance, however when we examine these assumptions more closely, they reveal little to us but appeals to shallow sentiment. dmb: > > In "Appearance and Reality" Bradley says, "The Absolute is the richer for > every discord and for all the diversity which it embraces." > > Then James says: > > "He means that these slain men make the universe richer, and that is > philosophy. John: Well I think he's sounding just a tad catty, there. There is construing fairly, ya know. James wasn't known for it anymore than dmb. No wonder there's an affinity. dmb's quoting continues: > But while professors Royce and Bradley and a whole host of guileless > thoroughfed thinkers are unveiling Reality and the Absolute and explaining > away evil and pain, this is the condition of the only beings known to us > anywhere in the universe with a developed consciousness of what the universe > is. What these people experience IS reality. It gives us an absolute phase > of the universe. John: Yes it does. That is my point too. Royce makes this point supreme in *Problem of Christianity* - his exposition of Absolute Pragmatism. What people experience is the absolute. dmb's exposition: > It is the personal experience of those best qualified in our circle of > knowledge to HAVE experience, to tell us WHAT IS. Now what does THINKING > ABOUT the experience of these persons come to, compared to directly and > personally feeling it as they fell it? The philosophers are dealing in > shades, while those who live and feel know truth. And the mind of mankind - > not yet the mind of philosophers and of the proprietary class - but of the > great mass of the silently thinking men and feeling of men, is coming to > this view." > (from Pragmatism in W.J. Writings 1902-1910, p.499. Emphasis is James's in > the original.) > > > Which brings us back to the "many cognizers" quote: > > > "The truth is too great for any one actual mind, even thought that mind be > dubbed 'the Absolute,' to know the whole of it. The facts and worths of life > need many cognizers to take them in. There is no point of view absolutely > public and universal." (James says in the intro to his "Talks to Teachers") > John: Well. Sorry. But man can't exist like that. There must be a unifying vision. There must be a common mythos of understanding in order for meaning to be. And the way it's worked out in public and universal point of view, is that this values-free metaphysics has predominated with devastating results to follow. dmb: > This not only puts decency and compassion back into the picture, it honors > the democratic spirit too. The rationalism that he's fighting here, like > Plato's lofty idealism, is practically contemptuous of empirical reality. > You know, this world of appearances is just so many shadows on a cave wall - > and all that. This is the philosophy of snobs who don't like to get their > hands dirty, of aristocrats who pretend the really real reality has nothing > to do with blood, sweat and tears. Not to mention music. > > John: Contemptuous of empirical reality? Not at all. But there's a difference between making empirical reality your Absolute, and putting it into a proper perspective as relative to Quality - an Idealistic Absolute. All this talk of "philosophical snobs" is just name-calling and throwing sand in the bull's eyes. dmb: > "The actual universe is a thing wide open, but rationalism makes systems > and systems must be closed. For men in practical life perfection is > something far off and still in process of achievement. This for rationalism > is but the illusion of the finite and relative: the absolute ground of > things is a perfect eternally complete." (Pragmatism, p.498) > > John: That may be how James and you conceive "the absolute ground of things", but that's not how Bradley, Royce and Pirsig portrayed their absolutes in their individual systems. They portrayed it rather as an infinite process of becoming. dmb: > At this point it's worth remembering that Plato was the original > rationalist. As Pirsig tells it, Plato's mistake was to turn Quality into > the same kind of otherworldly perfection. "He had encapsulated it: made a > permanent, fixed Idea out of it; had converted it to a rigid, immobile > Immortal Truth." (ZAMM, p.378) Pirsig says that Plato took the living, > dynamic "Good" of the sophists and converted it into a reified abstract > ideal. Likewise, Pirsig says that his MOQ is a "continuation of the > mainstream of twentieth century American philosophy. It is a form of > pragmatism, of instrumentalism [Dewey's name for pragmatism]" And he adds > that his Quality "is direct everyday experience" and "not a social code or > some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute" (Lila, p. 366) > > And so this philosophy was born to solve human problems more than > philosophical problems. It's aim is to help improve things in the here and > now. It's about what ideas can and cannot do for us, their purposes and > limits. In fact, James thought humanism was a better name for this > philosophy. > > John: Yeah, I agree. Humanism is the religion that has evolved through James' influence and teachings. Peirce came up with "pragmatism" and he disavowed James' interpretation early on. http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/auspitz/escape.htm * Peirce, at age sixty-four, received the honor from the Harvard Corporation of allowing private funds raised by William James to be passed through it to pay him for a series of lectures -- his one fleeting academic berth in all the years after the Johns Hopkins dismissal. The talks were given in Sever Hall, which stands on the site of the house where Peirce grew up (a bronze plaque noting this fact now graces the entry of the building). Ever proving himself beholden to no one, Peirce opened the lectures with what must have appeared as chaffingly condescending remarks about the lively but mistaken pragmatism of William James, his most reliable friend and benefactor, who had generously credited Peirce with originating the philosophical doctrine. Peirce saw Jamesian pragmatism as exaggerating practicality into a metaphysical doctrine parading as an anti-metaphysics. (James, as Peirce saw it, took practical effect as a criterion of truth rather than as a razor for clarifying meaning, and Peirce would soon rename his own view "pragmaticism," the better to distinguish it from that of James.)* John: Does "Exaggerating practicality into a metaphysical doctrine parading as anti-metaphysics" ring any bells with you dave? Cuz to me, it sure does sound like you. 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/md/archives.html
