Hi Dave,
I can't see that the conversation moved forward at all, though it
appears you were pressed for time and just adding in impressions
of what I said as you went along. Perhaps you'll figure out a way of
moving it forward if you come back to this, but I don't have any more
ideas.
Dave said:
But I'm still confused because this kind of preference for psychological
nominalism over radical empiricism is predicated on the assertion that
they mean the same thing. But that is the very thing in dispute. I don't
see how a theory of language (verbal behaviorism) can be parallel to
an empirical theory that centers around pre-verbal experience. And of
course I've raised the issue of a translation problem because terms
like "pre-verbal" stand for very different meanings.
Matt:
I'm confused about how to put my point anymore to try to get us on
the same page. This emblematic, partial exchange happened later:
Matt said:
What I mean then by not wanting "to use" radical empiricism is just
that I don't feel the need to use the philosophical vocabulary supplied
by radical empiricism to do philosophical work that I take another
vocabulary also able to do. This is what the "parallel claim" is for: to
establish that the two vocabularies "mean the same thing" over a
particular ground.
Dave said:
Okay, but that's exactly what this debate is all about.
Matt:
But, you _do_ agree that the two vocabularies "mean the same thing"
over a _particular ground_: their anti-Platonism. Right? What am I
missing in how to make this limited point precise? Our debate is
exactly _not_ over this particular ground I've staked out. (Well, until
I can figure out what you think I said in "Quine, Sellars, etc." that got
this particular ground in radical empiricism wrong.)
Perhaps it was an error in judgment on my part to try and express
psychological nominalism as only a negative anti-Platonic program.
Be that as it may, the "parallel claim" of my "Quine, Sellars, etc."
arranges both PN and RE as parallel in their negative attitude toward
Platonism. As you continue to re-emphasize to me, this time by
saying that "'pre-verbal' stand for very different meanings," you
agree that PN and RE agree on this. However, you still like to see the
issue as you disputing my parallel-claim. But as I see it, you aren't,
because you agree on the only thing I was arguing for every time you
say that PN isn't criticizing RE. That's partly why I feel incapable of
knowing how to move us forward.
When you say that you can't see "how a theory of language ... can be
parallel to an empirical theory that centers around pre-verbal
experience," I'm not sure I understand the problem. For one, the
theory of language is an empirical theory--it has to be, about the
empirical activity of language-users. Second, it has to account for
pre-verbal experience somehow, or else it wouldn't be able to
successfully explain how, e.g., language arose in the first place,
keeps arising in toddlers, the difference between sentience and
sapience, etc. This perhaps was my mistake in trying to articulate
PN as only anti-Platonism, thinking that would be a good place to
start for us, on the things we agree on. But you have your eye over
that horizon (while also taking a particular dislike in the way I
rhetorically mute our differences in order to better reach them),
comparing the "positive programs." That's perhaps where you jump
the gun, because it appears that you understand PN-philosophers as
incapable of having one, maybe? I was roughly trying to picture the
situation as a venn diagram, with the anti-Platonism of PN and RE as
the overlapping bit in the middle. My mistake was, as I said, trying
to make it appear as if there was nothing else on my side, while you
have the other half of RE. But your judgment here must be pre-mature:
Dave said:
I think we agree that your preferred vocabulary is almost purely
negative but radical empiricism is a positive program. This difference
basically means that the psychological nominalist is not able to do
anything that a radical empiricist can do. He just doesn't have those
tools at all.
Matt:
I can't see how you can know this already (stipulating this to the idea
that we are each basing our judgments solely on the evidence and
understanding we've so far presented). To know this, you'd have to
compare RE to the positive program at my disposal. This was my
mistake: you appear to think that I can't deploy a positive program at
all that attempts, in a different vocabulary, to account for the same
phenomena (like mystical experience) that you can with RE. If PN is
only anti-Platonism (as I've painted it), then I cannot see why the
psychological nominalist is only allowed to be a psychological
nominalist. I thought we'd gotten beyond the idea that
neopragmatists eschew positive philosophical theses? Perhaps I
have more cleaning up of the neopragmatist image than I had
thought.
This is why I wanted to move slowly: I cannot deploy everything at
once. I cannot guess every fire that needs to be put out. These
posts are big enough as they are trying to say precisely the small
things I take myself to be saying (which apparently aren't precise
enough anyways). I don't want to endlessly compare our big
judgments, as it were (Dave: "neopragmatism is anti-Pirsigian" vs.
Matt: "no it isn't"), I want to see the smaller judgments that build up
and justify the big one. I still don't understand enough of the smaller
ones on your side that could hold up your big one, nor do I understand
enough of the smaller judgments you have that knock down my
smaller judgments that try and hold up my big one. Does that make
clearer what kind of conversation I'm looking to participate in? I feel
like trot out your big conclusion over and over again.
Dave said:
But I'm trying to say that radical empiricism centers around something
that looks and sounds like everything negated by that thesis. Radical
empiricism centers around the terms prohibited by the slogan but it
uses them to stand for very different concepts.
Matt:
I don't understand how I am denying to you that I understand this.
Are you suggesting, here, that RE is both untouched by PN's
anti-Platonism _and_ that PN denies RE's positive program (deployed
by its non-Platonic experience-vocabulary)? That would be _not_
how I've understood what you've been claiming.
Matt said:
So: the issue has been, and still is, what radical empiricism does for
you that a psychological nominalist vocabulary is unable to do (i.e.
the specification of that ground of preference to the side of the area
of agreement) and whether everyone needs to do it.
Dave said:
Well, I'm not exactly sure what it would mean to say "everyone"
needs to read and assimilate Pirsig's texts. As you obviously already
know, reading Pirsig is the only requirement to be here and
discussing those books is the purpose of this forum. I guess that
would be one of the main reasons that I feel justified in insisting
upon the use of Pirsig's central terms and in putting stress upon
their meanings. I think it would be a bit absurd to be so insistent in
some other context but also think it's a bit absurd not to in this
particular context. That's why I find "Rorty's overbearing negativity
towards Platonism to be at a certain point bad conversationally", as
you said And it's not just that Rortyists "are not much fun to talk to
if you want to do anything other than beat up Platonists", although
that's probably true too. The problem is that it seems to preclude
discussion of positive programs like the pragmatic theory of truth
and radical empiricism
Matt:
This reply doesn't seem to acknowledge the extent to which I tried in
that post to map the kinds of available responses and what I think
about them (i.e. which ones will move the conversation forward).
For example, you say you feel justified because we are in the MD.
But in the face of my acknowledgment that this fact was never being
contested, you are just re-registering the fact that you don't think I
properly account for the fact that I'm conversing in the MD. Since
I've asserted that I think I do, this is a non-starter: we are just going
to disagree about this, and there doesn't seem any point anymore in
just pissing down each others legs. I tried to outline where I think
the _substantive_ philosophical disagreement will be found. At this
point, all I can do is ask that you re-read when you have time
(and/or the inclination if this is still worth the time) the outline of the
issue and try to acknowledge how the outline fits together in a
holistic way (for example, what I mean by "everyone" should hopefully
be clear by the time you finish the whole passage, as I cannot say 15
sentences at once, and precision sometimes takes time).
Rather than taking pot-shots by using my self-deprecating sense of
humor against me (like agreeing that it it's probably true that I'm
boring to talk to), why don't you try finishing a post before responding
to it? Try and do me the favor I give you in spending time in crafting
a cohesive response to the web of the thoughts you articulated in
your posts. I don't often respond to every segmented portion, but the
common mode of segmentation in conversations in the MD is often
the biggest reason conversations get dragged down by red herrings
and sidetrackings. Sometimes we have to ignore certain things in
order to select the bit that moves the conversation the direction you
think it should be moved.
Matt
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