Steve said to Matt:
.., the preconceptual/conceptual distinction that dmb is trying to use to push
against us itself makes the so-called "out of touch with DQ" problem impossible
or at least merely "secondary." If this problem is (as dmb must be saying) a
problem with our concepts, it is merely a "secondary" problem.
Matt replied to Steve:
...even SOM-philosophers are able to have direct experience despite their
inability to conceptualize it. This makes philosophy a kind of therapy, where
one tries and get people to stop fussing with bad philosophical hang-ups.
Ultimately, one might say, it doesn't matter what philosophy one holds in terms
of one's ability to tune into the direct experience of one's life. But if it
_does_ get in the way, well--so says the therapeutic Pirsig--here's a way of
not so getting hung up.
dmb says:
Oh, man. I think this line of thinking really shows that you're both misreading
the central concepts as well as the main point and purpose of the MOQ. I mean,
the over-arching theme is that, "our current modes of rationality are not
moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and
further from that better world," because, Pirisg says, "the whole structure of
reason, handed down to us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins
to be seen for what it really is...emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless
and spiritually empty." He says this problem "can't be solved by rational means
because the rationality itself is the source of the problem". That's the
problem you just denied. And you reject the solution to the problem you don't
recognize as legitimate.
Pirsig wants to "expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of
coming up with a solution" and he thinks "the answers aren't in the branches,
they're at the roots" of rationality. And so he wants "to show that that
classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made
far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation."
He says, "a formal acknowledgment of the role of Quality in the scientific
process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at all. It expands it, strengthens
it and brings it far closer to actual scientific practice." And all of this was
effected by reversing Plato's vicious intellectualism and rescuing the art of
the Sophists. He knew that Quality (primary empirical reality) had become
subordinated to intellect (secondary conceptual reality) somewhere back then
and he thinks that is backwards. His "solution started with a new philosophy"
or "a new spiritual rationality" wherein "reason was no longer t
o be "value free." Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality."
Getting into the reasons for your misreading is to open a whole other can of
worms. Because you both tend to misread the not only the MOQ in the same way
but also misread James's pragmatism and radical empiricism in the same way, I'm
fairly certain that your common interest in Richard Rorty has everything to do
with it. Where Rorty says, "Truth is a compliment we pay to sentences that earn
their keep" you two want to say that "DQ is a compliment we pay to sentences."
But in the MOQ truth is conceptual excellence, a static intellectual species of
the good. You see the problem there? Your translation might make sense if DQ
and truth were the same thing, but in the MOQ they are on opposite sides of the
first and central distinction. Truth is static. Sentences are static.
Compliments are static. To say DQ is like truth or a compliment or that it
refers to any kind of sentence is, in the MOQ, pure nonsense.
To make a long story short, Rorty's Pragmatism is the wrong way to look at the
MOQ's core ideas. That approach has you wrongly treating the MOQ's central
distinction as if it were Platonism, as if it were an appearance-reality
distinction. Rorty's pomo anti-Platonism is one that concludes we shouldn't be
doing epistemology, that empiricism is no longer tenable and so he moves
everything over to language. Pirsig and James are also anti-Platonic but their
approach could hardly be more different from Rorty's. They are radically
empirical and, consistently, their pragmatism is a very empirical theory of
truth. That's why you both have so much trouble with the central concept of DQ,
because it is the primary EMPIRICAL reality, but Rortyisms only ever allow you
to frame everything in terms of language webs, sentences that earn their keep,
intersubjective agreement, and the like, all of which is static and conceptual
and is CONTRASTED with DQ.
Rorty is the reason you're so often as odds with me and the MOQ. This territory
doesn't show up on Rorty's map and so it's inevitable that you'll get lost
trying to navigate by it here. You might be able to translate Rorty if you map
him onto to Pirsig's description of the problem, onto a description of the
empty rationality that prevents you from seeing Quality - but their solutions
are not comparable to each other's. In a nutshell, where Pirsig says words and
concepts should subordinated to the primary empirical reality, Rorty says we
can have access to no such thing and it's language all the way down. Naturally,
your attempts to read one in terms of the other is a conceptual train wreck.
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