Hey Steve, Steve said: I'm surprised you agreed here [that the question of "what is" is different than "how to act"] as I was actually embarrassed for dmb for trying to make a point in this forum by insisting on a fundamental difference between IS and OUGHT.
Matt: I've been thinking about that Humean distinction lately in relationship to the kinds of things pragmatists want to say about ethics and politics. For example, I formulated a version of it directly after as the difference between theoretical questions and practical questions. Is this the same as the theory/practice distinction that pragmatists also want to blur? Or the fact/value one? Well, I think the trick is to begin to formulate and show what the blurring amounts by showing interactions: for is a blur the same as a monism? In the present case of theory/practice, I think Hanson's notion of the theory-ladenness of discourse is right as the blurring movement, but what that means, I think, is that you can do abstract theory-work, and then bring back down your theory-work to _tinker_ with the practice. This is essentially the Deweyan movement of inquiry, of reflection spurred by doubt. So in this case, I was arguing that a consideration of _what_ the creative process is we might come to a better understanding of _how_ we should go about it. Because our practical inferences are stated with theoretical vocabulary (i.e. theory-ladenness), we might get better practical inferences if we import a better theoretical vocabulary. As I think this is essentially how Dewey viewed it, I think the train of thought serves as an effective replacement for the Platonic distinction, as opposed to a backslide into it. This isn't assured, but the pedigree is at least sound. (I've also been learning a lot in these terms from Robert Brandom.) However, I have found an instance in which stating that there is a gulf between "is" and "ought" seems not only sound, but fundamental to human progress: how things _are_ today is no effective curb on our utopic visions of how things _should_ be. It seems true. And its a very effective weapon in short-circuiting bad inferences about peoples staying in their "stations in life." If _moral_ change is to be envisionable, I think the non sequitor between "is" and "ought" might have to be in force. Matt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
