On Jul 31, 2011, at 5:15 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> 
> Marsha said:
> Protagoras:  “Man is the measure of all things.”, or as Lila might have 
> interpreted it ‘All beliefs are true if you believe them.’ 
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> Marsha think all beliefs are true if you believe them, and yet she has no 
> idea why anyone would call her a relativist or why anyone would object to her 
> interpretation of truth.
> 
> Is it just me or is that a silly, silly, vacuous thing to say? Doesn't Pirsig 
> say that beliefs are true to the extent that they work AS beliefs? Yes, and 
> James's pragmatism will fill in the details of what that means for anyone 
> who's interested in knowing about truth as "a species of the good". Ideas 
> only become true in experience, when they are put to work in reality. And 
> that's where our beliefs are wedged and controlled by the sensible flux (DQ) 
> and the conceptual order (sq). That's what our truths have to answer to and 
> beliefs are certainly not true just because they are believed. Without 
> action, beliefs are literally meaningless. 
> 
> I mean, try ACTING on the belief that all beliefs are true. And then just 
> watch as disaster unfolds. You will almost certainly crash and burn, maybe 
> even literally.
> 


Marsha:
If you promise not conflate relative truth and ethical truth, I will confess 
that I do think truth is relative within the MoQ.  I understand the MoQ to be 
ontologically indeterminate and epistemologically relative.  The last time we 
had this discussion, you ran off never to be heard of again.  But here from the 
MoQ Textbook:

"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."

And if you need to be reminded once again of RMP's explanation that James' 
pragmatism turns into ethical relativism without the evolutionary help of the 
four levels.  Of course you remember the discussion about the holocaust 
producing satisfaction for the Nazis? 
 
 
 
 
___
 

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