Briefly....
Matt said to dmb:
You say, for example, it's a "translation problem," but I don't have a sense
for the specifics of the particular translation problem. What you say as a
generalization, and quote from Seigfried, might be true. But my sense is that
it isn't true of, for example, Rorty, and it would be swinging in the dark to
try to preemptorily defend Rorty or myself of a position that hasn't been
explicitly criticized in any particular kind of way. I don't know what your
exact problem is, so how I can defend any particular position exactly?
dmb says:
Well, I'm asking you to look at some very specific ideas when translating guys
like Sellars because he uses terms like "pre-conceptual" to mean something very
different from the meaning intended by James or Pirsig. In this case, that one
term refers to two completely different concepts. I'm saying you're right to
reject the notion as Sellars uses it and I agree with that rejection for the
same basic reasons.
The pre-conceptual experience asserted by radical empiricism is not raw sense
data and in fact radical empiricism rejects the metaphysical assumptions behind
such a model of perception. James describes it in ordinary terms like sensation
or feeling but it's important right now to point out that James used these
terms very broadly, especially when talking about pure experience, this
different notion of "pre-conceptual experience". In that case, feeling or
sensation referred to all modes or awareness all at once so that it included
thoughts, emotions, moods, attitudes, perceptions, sensations, feelings, etc.
all at once.
The reason they want to get at this cutting edge of experience is very
different than the reasons for wanting to establish some kind of foundation on
sense data. There is no pretense about getting at the world as it really is.
It's about getting at the nature of experience as it actually is and they find
something that the traditional empiricists overlooked. They both want to say
that the "human serpent is over everything" but this is where they do it, from
the bottom up. It's this cutting edge of experience that they want to integrate
into our thinking and truth-making processes. The motorcycle mechanic and the
scientist are both guided to select the right hypothesis or the quarterback
finds the open man and throws before he has time to think about it
deliberately. Without this initial, immediate sense of quality, researchers
have found, a person can't even choose a breakfast cereal from the grocery
store shelf. I mean, pure experience or DQ is a crucial but widely overlook
phase of the overall cognitive process. Not to mention the widespread
phenomenon known as the mystical experience and its relation to all the world's
religions.
Matt said:
Hey, you smell scientific materialism all over analytic philosophy. I smell
Platonism over a lot of the formulations of mysticism. Both of us want to say
that, for the most part, those smells are wafting from adjacent compartments to
the ones we're actually interested in.
dmb says:
I don't think that's fair. I only described Sellars and Rorty using the terms
they use for themselves and those labels don't just "smell" like scientific
materialism, they declare it quite openly. (Verbal behaviorism, non-reductive
physicalism, eliminative materialism are terms they use. Again, these are not
my cups of tea and I think that's a very different perspective but it's not
slanderous to point this out.) Platonism, on the other hand, is explicitly
attacked in all kinds of ways by Pirsig. He even goes after Plato personally,
by name.
Do you really think of these differences as "elusive smells"? It's not a black
and white sort of thing, but its like the difference between musical genres.
There are small differences like the one between Bakersfield country and
Nashville country. Then there are big differences, like the one between Mozart
and The Clash or jazz and polka. Different doesn't mean worse, although there
is definitely some bad music and the various genres suit various temperaments
and even differing demographic profiles. Philosophies are like that too. In
this case we have one pragmatist who says the fundamental nature of reality is
outside of language and another who says it's language all the way down. See, I
don't quote Rorty's critic's to use "relativism" as mere slander. And it
doesn't even matter if it's exactly true or not. That's the sense that I get
from reading his texts and from reading about his text and relativism does not
suit my tastes in philosophy. I think that relativism is a cha
rge against which Pirsig and James have to be defended. And so temperament
plays a role in our arguments. I can agree with many points, as in the case of
Sellars, but it still makes me bristle. And I'm pretty sure that behaviorism
and physicalism are the kinds of things Pirsig had in mind in his critique of
scientific objectivity. These are all a part of putting the differences on
display, both broadly and in specific terms.
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