DMB said to Matt:
..You can sensitively take this up any inferential path you like. It still
validates an imaginary conflict and it's downright insulting to Pirsig. You
often act like Pirsig's thought would be improved by ignoring or dismissing
some part of it. That is way too presumptuous and just plain offensive.
Matt replied:
.... Was Pirsig being presumptuous and offensive to James when he suggested in
Lila that James's pragmatism was a philosophy that a Nazi could use (and that
his was an improvement because it couldn't)? I don't find you presumptuous and
offensive when you deride Rorty. I don't think you understand him at all, but
I do consider you to be exercising your autonomous rights as an individualist
philosopher to choose who and what you take seriously and which claims you want
to defend and attack.
dmb says:
No, Pirsig was addressing scholarly criticism that James's pragmatism has faced
for a long time and it's not like I haven't cited books, papers and
encyclopedia to criticize Rortyism, which you bring to this table by the way.
You've only cited Marsha and your solution to her imaginary conflict, you said,
is to dismiss or ignore one of the two passages. This move seems to presume
that Pirsig needs help being coherent and instead give credence to Marsha's
transparent attempt to piss on James. How can you fail to see her vindictive
motives in this, Mr. Sensitivity? Do you think that represents and wise and
responsible choice about who and what to take seriously? I don't.
DMB said:
And your denial only insults me. I know what you said.
Matt replied:
Well, that's not very hard. You're just looking to be insulted by me. I'm
really only trying to do it some of the times. The other times, like this one,
you're actually violating Pirsigian strictures by being insulted, suggesting
that I cannot go my own way as a philosopher, and that I must kowtow like a
professional philosophologist, which we all know is an absurd stereotype of
something no one wants to be.
dmb says:
Huh? I just meant that your denials insult my intelligence. It's not about your
freedom. It's just about denying your own claims and statements. It's not about
philosophology. It's just about you pretending that you weren't playing along
with Marsha's imaginary contradiction. "Seriously" was your word for how it
ought to be taken.
Matt replied:
Of course I was playing along. That's how you determine whether an alternative
inferential pattern is worth its salt or not. I, apparently, also think
there's a lot more thinking involved in philosophy than you do. To recur to
the chess metaphor again, you're like the person who judges a game by the
static snapshot you see, rather than seeing how the game plays out or wanting
to see how the players typically move their pieces. Philosophy is about the
playing, not about the pieces; it's about the players, not about the board. I
would have thought that someone who knows more about Zen Buddhism than I
would've understood that.
dmb says:
Huh?
If philosophy is like playing a game, then I think you're trying to take moves
back and then pretending you never made them. I think that's cheating.
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