Andre, Ron, and y'all: As I usually use the terms, today metaphysics is just the broadest and most general branch philosophy and that's just fine. The problem is that metaphysicians of the past have so often made objection claims about the nature of reality, claims that involve positing a "metaphysical entity" or principle that can't be known in experience or otherwise validated by empirical evidence. James called these posits "trans-experiential entities" and "metaphysical fictions". His radical empiricism was more or less specifically designed to rule them out. Anything that is or can be known in experience MUST find a place in our philosophies, he said, and by the same token philosophers have no business talking about anything that can't be known in experience. It's possible that there are realities beyond our experience but, by definition, we simply can't know anything about that and so we ought not say anything about that either. Those are the kinds of metaphysical entities that have no place in the MOQ. Pirsig's Quality is not a metaphysical entity in the negative sense precisely because it is known in experience. It's an empirical reality, not a metaphysical abstraction like, say, God, substance, the Cartesian "I", causality, gravity, etc. For James and Pirsig, these are secondary concepts, not primary realities.
> Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:32:28 -0700 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MD] What is determinism? > > > > Ron to Steve and dmb: > > "Us" certainly does have metaphysical status because it has practical meaning > in experience. > > Steve to Andre (in a previous post): > It would only be so if I gave metaphysical significance to the will in > describing this as an act of willing. Of course I didn't and would never > think of doing that. > > Andre: > Pardon my ignorance gentlemen but can someone clarify for me what criteria is > used to determine (hihi!) when something is metaphysically 'significant' or > has metaphysical 'status'? > > If metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the > fundamental nature of the universe and 'being'(from wiki) in other words > "Reality" what can be 'legitimately' considered as lacking 'status' or > 'significance' for metaphysical purposes? > > I'd be most grateful to get clarity on this. > > > Ron: > That which does not have practicle value in experience (the good) . Pirsig > said it best with > I believe "that which has no value does not exist." The best values the ones > that have the most > value in experience are usually the most metaphysicaly significant. To a > Pragmatist at least. 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
