Hey Dan, I think what we've seen especially in this last series of exchanges between us is what we might call a "trust building exercise." You wanted to make sure I was using old terms (like "nature") in the new ways (without SOM assumptions). This, I think, is perfectly normal occurrence in philosophy, a kind of "getting to know you" exercise. Below is just the final coming to terms:
Matt said: I'm not sure why you thought my parenthetical statement implied that it needed a Cartesian-like certainty as opposed to high value... Dan said: It was how you phrased your statements: [Matt from earlier] "Not all intellectual patterns have this flavor, but a lot of the one's out of the natural sciences do. (Principally, I think, because a lot of the stuff in "nature" was around before we personally were.)" You seemed to be saying that certain intellectual patterns pertaining to natural sciences hold a higher value on account of "stuff in nature" being around before we personally were. That is what got a rise out of my intellectual hackles, but I see better now what you were saying... thank you. Matt: Oh, I see. I used "flavor" to try and suggest the idea that there wasn't anything better about intellectual patterns that extend in this way, because like you I don't want to suggest that the natural sciences have better patterns or something. It's just a different taste, like people who like chocolate on their pancakes, but butterscotch on their ice cream. Dan said: I believe the MOQ says that the relationship exists in our heads though, not out there in the world apart from us. So I am unsure there is a right way of distinguishing between them. Matt said: I no longer believe that "correctness" needs a notion of "out there in the world apart from us." Dan said: Well then I am not sure what we are disagreeing about either. Your formulation of personal evolutionary history vs. longitudinal evolutionary history led me to the conclusion that you believe there exists a world apart from us. If this isn't correct then why are you attempting to distinguish between them? Isn't the idea itself a distinction? Matt: I think that we believe, as a high-valued intellectual pattern, that "there exists a world apart from us" is true. The reason I'm trying to distinguish between personal evolutionary history and longitudinal evolutionary history is to distinguish between the history of an individual and the history of a community (and this as another intellectual pattern of high value). Not holding this distinction is how one flirts with solipsism, I think. Pirsig's discourse on Western ghosts can be read as flirting with a kind of solipsistic idealism (as I think I've seen aggressive critics of Pirsig pursue in the past), but Pirsig is more like a Hegelian idealist, whose root idea is the primacy of the community in understanding where ideas come from (rather than an individual's confrontation with the world, which is rooted in the pre-Kantian empiricist tradition). A beginning formulation of understanding Pirsig's relationship to the classical empiricists is to say that he is a post-Kantian, quasi-Hegelian empiricist (which is pretty close to just saying he's a Deweyan pragmatist). 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
