Hey Ron, Ron said: And I think that speaks to the sort of style and literary backround you posess as well as your approach to Philosophy, which I find unique in the way of it having a living element of inquiry to tease out a Philosophic topic of conversation. Often academically it's not the usual course but thats not to say "thats not how philosophy is done" it just to say that it's an unusual style of Philosophic conversation that doesent necessarily defend a particular point of view. Which is often the case in dialectical fashion here.
Matt: Hmm. I guess I never thought of my "methodology" as unusual, but rather as the necessary background to reason-giving discourse. That, engaging with someone else's views is, quite as an extension of the metaphor itself being used, worming one's way into the other person's head to _view_ the world as they do. Because it's not that I don't have a particular point of view to defend, it's that there's no point in assuming that everyone on the other side of your eyes is an enemy at the gates that must be repelled. Why not figure out if they _should_ be repelled or not? To change metaphors, if we think of every individualist philosopher--Pirsig's kind of philosopher, the one who figures out what _they_ think first--as speaking their own, unique language, then this does not isolate every philosopher from every other any more than the English are isolated from the French. What do people speaking different languages do when they meet? Do they assume the other is stupid for not knowing the correct language (i.e. one's own)? Of course not. They work their way toward mutual communication, which is basically becoming bilingual. And then they start rejecting each other's gods and idols if it comes to that. This is what I teach my students, and I think it's pretty standard amongst college educationists, even if not as explicitly thought about in these particular terms. All you hear about from college instructors these days is "critical thinking." That's what this is, the pre-stage of critical analysis. For you can't pull apart what you can't put together first. As I see it, great thinkers are worlds unto themselves in their writings, and knowing your way around them is knowing the hidden roads that connect those worlds, like worm holes. Or to vary to maps, I say "hidden" because it's not as if the map of Jamestown connects to Deweyland and Pirsigtopia at the edges, one map ending and another picking up where it left off. Every map describes the same world, and flipping back and forth between them, finding the hidden roads, is a matter of figuring out how they describe the same landmarks. "Oh, see, Pirsig calls that hill 'direct experience,' but Dewey calls it...wait, that's not that hill. Oh, this must be it: 'habits.' Boy, that's kind of weird..." It is an active, live investigation of flipping back and forth. And then, of course, one has one's own map. Even if one's map is like mine, which is self-consciously scrapped together from other people's, one should never think that this makes it _less_ uniquely yours, and not itself a world unto itself. After all, nobody but you has had the direct experience of your life. Ron said: As far as DQ, you captured my conception of it quite adequatly, whether or not you agree with it, or, it coincides with Pirsigs formulations seems almost secondary to that. I feel it links enough of Pirsigs ideas to qualify as within his line of thinking for my own acceptance and , hopefully, it seemed to breed a new direction of discussion which you seemed interested in. I think this aspect held the most promise. Matt: The nature of this conversation unveils itself--I don't remember what this conception is of yours that I captured well. Do you want to state it again, in a new thread, and perhaps we can pick up and move with that? 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
