Hi dmb, > dmb says: Pirsig says our modes of rationality tend to prevent us from seeing quality. It's the problem of squareness and attitudes of objectivity and value-free science. If you ask, "how can the problem be that we aren't in proper relation to it?", then you are saying that Pirsig's work is aimed at solving a fake problem.
Steve: If that is indeed what his work is aimed at (and that is debatable), then, yes, it is aimed at a fake problem. How can the problem be "not seeing Quality" when EVERYTHING is Quality? Just what is it do you think we are seeing if not Quality? What could this something else be that we are seeing that is not included in the set "everything"? dmb: The MOQ's solution IS exactly what you say it isn't. Steve: I was talking about you not the MOQ. dmb: Pirsig is saying that the world will be improved by a rationality that isn't value-free... Steve interrupts: I agree with that idea, and I agree that that is Pirsig's position. dmb continues: ...that prioritizes the empirical reality from which our concepts come and to which they must answer. It is NOT concepts RATHER than an intimacy with reality that will improve things. It is a form of rationality that has a working concept of Quality built right into it, from the ground up. Steve: What pragmatists like myself want to do away with is precisely your (and Pirsig's?) notion that our concepts must answer to reality. Instead, concepts must earn their keep with respect to our purposes. The quality of an idea lies not in some proper hooking up between concepts and reality (this is a correspondence theory of truth that pragmatists reject) but instead lies in the extent to which it helps us achieve our goals. 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
