dmb,
Here is a quote for you to consider:
Anthony writes:
“Intellectual values include truth, justice, freedom, democracy and,
trial by jury. It’s worth noting that the MOQ follows a pragmatic
notion of truth so truth is seen as relative in his system while
Quality is seen as absolute. In consequence, the truth is defined
as the highest quality intellectual explanation at a given time.
RMP:
If the past is any guide to the future this explanation must be taken
provisionally; as useful until something better comes along. One can
then examine intellectual realities the same way he examines paintings
in an art gallery, not with an effort to find out which one is the ‘real’
painting, but simply to enjoy and keep those that are of value. There are
many sets of intellectual reality in existence and we can perceive some
to have more quality than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result
of our history and current patterns of values. (Pirsig, 1991, p.103)”
(McWatt,Anthony,MOQ Textbook)
Marsha
On Oct 6, 2010, at 2:45 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> Yea, that's exactly what I've learned to expect from Marsha.
>
> Insult and evade, insult and evade. You'll do anything to avoid the evidence,
> no matter how rude, unfair or irrational.
>
> Like I said, the evidence should speak for itself and reasonable people
> respect the evidence. Obviously, the evidence is not altered by the fact that
> you have no respect for me personally and it's not altered by my opinion of
> you either. It comports with your interpretation or it doesn't. It supports
> my view or it doesn't. If the evidence does not inform your view, how can
> your view be good or right or true? Do you even care about what's good or
> right or true?
>
> I asked one simple and direct question. Again, BASED ON THIS EVIDENCE, does
> James sound like an epistemological relativist to you? If so, please explain.
>
> From "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth", pages 588-9:
>
> "It is quite evident that our obligation to acknowledge truth, so far from
> being unconditional, is tremendously conditioned. Truth with a big T, and in
> the singular, claims abstractly to be recognized, of course; but concrete
> truths in the plural need be recognized only when their recognition is
> expedient. A truth must always be preferred to a falsehood when both relate
> to the situation; but when neither does, truth is as little of a duty as
> falsehood. If you ask me what o’clock it is and I tell you that I live at 95
> Irving Street, my answer may indeed be true, but you don’t see why it is my
> duty to give it. A false address would be as much to the purpose. With this
> admission that there are conditions that limit the application of the
> abstract imperative, THE PRAGMATISTIC TREATMENT OF TRUTH SWEEPS BACK UPON US
> IN ITS FULNESS. Our duty to agree with reality is seen to be grounded in a
> perfect jungle of concrete expediencies. When Berkeley had explained what
> people meant by matter, people thought that he denied matter’s existence.
> When Messrs. Schiller and Dewey now explain what people mean by truth, they
> are accused of denying ITS existence. These pragmatists destroy all objective
> standards, critics say, and put foolishness and wisdom on one level. A
> favorite formula for describing Mr. Schiller’s doctrines and mine is that we
> are persons who think that by saying whatever you find it pleasant to say and
> calling it truth you fulfil every pragmatistic requirement. I leave it to you
> to judge whether this be not an impudent slander. Pent in, as the pragmatist
> more than anyone else sees himself to be, between the whole body of funded
> truths squeezed from the past and the coercions of the world of sense about
> him, who so well as he feels the immense pressure of objective control under
> which our minds perform their operations? If anyone imagines that this law is
> lax, let him keep its commandment one day, says Emerson. We have heard much
> of late of the uses of the imagination in science. It is high time to urge
> the use of a little imagination in philosophy. The unwillingness of some of
> our critics to read any but the silliest of possible meanings into our
> statements is as discreditable to their imaginations as anything I know in
> recent philosophic history. Schiller says the true is that which ‘works.’
> Thereupon he is treated as one who limits verification to the lowest material
> utilities. Dewey says truth is what gives ‘satisfaction.’ He is treated as
> one who believes in calling everything true which, if it were true, would be
> pleasant. Our critics certainly need more imagination of realities."
> (Emphasis is James's in the original.)
>
>
>
>
> How does your view compare to that "favorite formula" of pragmatism's
> critics, the one that James describes here as an "impudent slander"? Do you
> think you might be an impudent slanderer in the same sort of way? I think so.
> Also, please notice that I DID NOT ASK HOW MUCH YOU RESPECT ME because that's
> not relevant to the question. It's not about me. These questions are about
> your view and its relation to James's text.
>
> "A favorite formula for describing Mr. Schiller’s doctrines and mine is that
> we are persons who think that by saying whatever you find it pleasant to say
> and calling it truth you fulfil every pragmatistic requirement."
>
>
>
>
>
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