Hi dmb, > Steve said: > If these two quotes are actually saying the same thing, I'd be very > interested to understand how that could be. Or are you are just doing a > "Lucy" here? > > > dmb says: > Doing a "Lucy" is when you demand answers and then ignore the answers when > they are given. That's exactly what you do and that's why we have been going > round and round for months and months. Like I said, that's why your questions > can be answered by adding "like I said" to the answers already given. I want > to quit because you raise the same points and ask same questions over and > over even though they've already been answered - usually several times. > > In fact, you recently posted that SEP quote in question as response to a long > series of quotes from Seigfried that specifically addressed James's > practical, pragmatic view of free will and determinism. But you completely > ignored the substance of Seigfried's remarks AGAIN, even though I've posted > them about five times in the last three months. It doesn't get much more > "Lucy" than that.
Steve: I didn't post that SEP quote as a response to the song series of Siegfried quotes, nor did I recognize the long series of Seigfried quotes as an answer to any questions I asked. I have no idea what you were hoping I would pay attention to in that long series of quotes and what you thought those quotes meant with regard to our discussion. SEP article on pragmatism: "When philosophers suppose that free will and determinism are in conflict, James responds that once we compare the practical consequences of determinism being true with the practical consequences of our possessing freedom of the will, we find that there is no conflict." dmb: > Anyway, I think the idea in the SEP quote is that free will and determinism > are both based on the same empirical data and so the issue cannot be decided > on that basis. The difference isn't based on any practical reality. It's just > a matter of how you take it, in the same way that the optimist and the > pessimist both live in the same world. The difference is philosophic, not > scientific, as Pirsig puts it. That's what makes it a metaphysical dispute. > And yet, the Putnam quote seems to be saying, it's still true that serious > practical consequences will follow from adopting either position. They both > have devastating logical consequences, as Pirsig puts it, because we are > faced with the prospect of abandoning either science or morality. Our radical > empiricists, James and Pirsig, insist that freedom and restraint are > empirical realities and that neither should be treated as illusions or > otherwise explained away by metaphysical principles. They insist that it's an > empirical questi on with empirical answers. Steve: That idea agrees with what Putnam said..."Yet James also believed that the question of whether we have free will cannot be settled on intellectual grounds. Consequently, it is the sort of question one is entitled to answer on passional grounds; James asserts he has free will."...but that particular SEP quotes says that James though that there is no conflict in the "practical consequences" rather than merely the sense data. Surely, "devastating logical consequences" ought to count among "practical consequences." But if we can appreciate intellectual constructions like paintings in a gallery rather than demanding thee single True way of describing reality, then surely we don't have a forced choice between abandoning either science or morality. These "devastating logical consequences" are only possible under SOM where either one metaphysical belief or the other can be true. In fact, Pirsig qualified his statement about devastating consequences with the words "seems to" and "under SOM." After we have abandoned SOM, what "passional grounds" even remain for choosing one over the other? What is left to get all passionate about once we view free will and determinism as intellectual patterns that can be used for whatever purposes they may be good for rather than as competing claims about the ultimate nature of reality? It seems to me that if someone claiming to have abandoned SOM can still be driven into an existential funk while contemplating free will versus determinism, then that person has not completely abandoned SOM. Best, Steve 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
