Steve said:
As I understand this debate,
1. DMB accused Matt of missing something important by not using
the vocabulary of radical empiricism.
2. Matt wondered what is gained from that vocabulary in arguing
against Platonism that can't be done using the vocabulary of
psychological nominalism.
3. DMB said that they are not the same thing.
4. Matt said he never said that they were. (DMB should see 2.
again because he missed the point.)
5. DMB finally got to the question and said that psychological
nominalism denies "immediate experience" and "pre-intellectual"
awareness.
But this doesn't really answer the question. Those are terms Matt
wouldn't want to use, but what do you get out of those terms that
Matt can't get out of his terms?
Matt:
If (4) doesn't sound like something I said, then that's because Steve's
doing a better job here of stating my line of thought than I was.
To repunctuate Steve's question after (5), the big reason why I ask
the practical question is because Dave states explicitly now that the
"immediate" and "pre-intellectual" of radical empiricism are not the
concepts that Sellars attacks as the Myth of the Given and then
denies a place of in psychological nominalism. In other words, when
Sellars says "all awareness is a linguistic affair," he is not on the
surface saying something in conflict with the use of "immediate,"
"direct," and "pre-intellectual" in radical empiricism. If there is a
conflict, it cannot be obvious because Sellars attacks--albeit in a
different way--the same Catersian myths James does. The attacks
then justify Sellars and James's sense that the positive metaphysics
they commend are non-Cartesian/Platonic/whatever. This puts
them on parallel footing at the beginning of a further investigation
below the surface.
The practical question then is: if a Pirsigian wants to say that the
"immediate," "direct," and "pre-intellectual" get at something that
Sellars leaves out, I would like to know what that is. However, a
bad answer at this stage of superficial agreement is to point at the
slogan "all awareness is a linguistic affair" and say "ain't it obvious,"
because--if the attacks were successful--then the superficial
slogans have been cleared of many charges already. That's, at
least, why I think the burden of proof is not on me, insofar as I've
tried to explain what radical empiricism and psychological
nominalism were for in "Quine, Sellars, etc." already and am
unsure of what I need to add to explain how I think things work
(outside of smells of scientism that I have a hard time smelling).
Matt
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