Hi dmb,
> dmb says:
> Huh? Our "metaphysical relation" to DQ? Metaphysics is a bunch of words. It's
> just the menu. You seem to be saying that the food is what it is regardless
> of the menu, that it's not possible for any menu to keep you from the food.
> But what if you're reading a menu that insists that there is no such thing as
> food and reality is just menus all the way down? Wouldn't that be a very bad
> menu? It's a menu that fools you into thinking you've already got the food
> and it says don't pay any attention to those crazy folks who talk about the
> scents coming from the kitchen. who insist that there is something beyond the
> menu.
Steve said:
The menu-food analogy completely falls flat in the above when the food
is supposed to stand in for the whole of reality rather than something
behind the curtain or in the kitchen. There is no possibility for
being outside the kitchen when the kitchen is all of reality.
> Steve said:
> If what you mean by "out of touch with reality" is merely having bad ideas
> about reality, then fine. But what does the "out of touch" metaphor get you
> other than Platonic confusion (people mistaking you for saying that our ideas
> correctly hookup with reality as it really is)? Why not just say we need
> better ideas to avoid that interpretation?
>
> dmb says:
> You and Matt are the only ones who ever take this as Platonism. I've
> explained why I think this makes no sense until I'm blue in the face. As far
> as I can tell, this is not Pirsig's problem so much as the quirky problem of
> two Rorty fans that are so fanatically and dogmatically anti-Platonic that
> they find it lurking under every metaphor, even under Pirsig's anti-Platonic
> metaphors.
Steve:
I agree that this isn't "Pirsig's problem." As far as I know "out of
touch with reality" is YOUR phrase rather than Pirsig's. My point was
that Pirsig's philosophy (specifically his formula,
experience=reality) makes your phrase, "out of touch with reality,"
incoherent. But you have explained it as meaning that we can have bad
ideas. Of course, I agree with that. It just seems like a strange
phrase for an anti-Platonist to use to make the point that we can have
bad ideas.
> Steve said:
> ..If "out of touch" simply means we need better ideas, then aren't we always
> in that position regardless of whether we subscribe to the SOM or the MOQ?
> The MOQ may be MORE in touch (a set of better ideas), but surely you don't
> mean to say it _ultimately_ in touch (the best possible set of ideas).
>
> dmb said:
> "Ultimately in touch"? Who talks like that? I don't anyone who ever talked
> like that, except for the odd religious fanatic.
Steve:
I just mean, "as in touch as it is possible to be."
dmb said:
> Let me repeat the main point; dualistic reason has tended to conceal our
> contact with basic reality. The MOQ puts that concealed basic reality at the
> center.
Steve:
Here you seem to have come around to my point of view: we ARE in touch
with reality, and our ideas could only ever conceal that fact from us
rather than take us out of reality.
> Steve said:
> And if "in touch" is a matter of good ideas as you say above, then where does
> the "taking off the glasses" bit come in? If the glasses are intellectual and
> social patterns, and if "in touch" is a matter of having better ideas, then
> "in touch" is a set of awesome glasses rather than having no glasses. It
> seems to me that you contradicting yourself. You are saying... A. "in touch"
> is about having good concepts. B. taking off the glasses is about
> unconceptualized reality. C. taking off the glasses is getting in touch. How
> can "getting in touch" be simultaneously about not having any concepts and
> also about having better concepts?
>
>
>
>
> dmb says:
> Taking off the glasses is the philosophical mysticism bit. The mystics says
> reality is outside of language. This is what James and Pirsig both mean when
> they say there must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality. But
> words and concepts are true and good and useful only if they agree with
> reality, to the extent that they successfully guide experience. Taking the
> glasses of is going to be some kind of mystical experience while having good
> concepts is a matter of truth of intellectual static good. There is no
> contradiction is saying we can have a mystical experience AND we want our
> concepts to acknowledge this pre-conceptual experience or acknowledge the
> fact that people can have a mystical experience. In other words, there is no
> contradiction in the fact that we can posit the concept that there is more to
> reality than concepts. The menu can warn you about it's own limited function
> and can point out how it is distinct from the food it describes. Having good
> concept
> s is like having a good menu. They successfully lead you to a good meal.
> That's when you put the menu down or take the glasses off.
Steve:
Here again, you are supporting my point that if you follow the
primary/secondary experience distinction, then "in touch with reality"
as a primary matter of mysticism ("taking off the glasses") is not the
same thing as "in touch with reality" as a secondary matter of having
good ideas. You have been conflating two separate ideas.
Best,
Steve
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