Dave: I'm not sure what level of explanation you are looking for. I suspect that I won't succeed at whatever level you've determined is appropriate, though. I know you think I just say things as a smokescreen for intellectual quality, but I think I've put my time in for what might be called "leeway" for small, vague formulas that encapsulate suggestions for inquiry, but are not the inquiry themselves. Except for Pirsig and Anthony McWatt--and perhaps you--I've left more signposts along the way of sustained Pirsig-inquiry than I think anyone else. I've shown more willingness to develop thoughts I've had in the MD _into_ sustained inquiries than anyone else (except Anthony, whose dissertation could quite conceivably be said to have originated in his work here). I have a record in the Essay Forum, and I have some pieces at my own blog that might count as well (though I'm less sure they should count). Additionally, I've stretched my legs for intellection on the history of philosophy on my blog, a record that hopefully shows that I'm not just blowing complete gas, but trying to engage thoughtfully with things I've read over the last five years. And I don't say this to denigrate people who _don't_ do this: I don't think this is even the place for sustained argument or inquiry. And not all amateur philosophers need to feel as if they have a responsibility to do it. I don't think I've earned a badge, but I do think I've earned whatever reputation I have amongst most people as being a dull philosophologist. Dave--you're one of the few people who have met me through words that thinks I'm full of shit. You most be one of the few clear-sighted, sane people, don't you think?
You apparently have a conception of a philosopher that is able to, at a moments notice, wield perfect interpretations at problems. I think that's dumb. I understand that it takes time and energy and _research_ to justify a lot of different kinds of claims in a lot of different kinds of ways. You're the Rigel in this situation, don't you understand? You're going to read all this, and think, "This is all just smokescreen again, trying to weasel out of having to back up anything he says or explain himself or admit that he's just a gasbag." But I think that's only because you won't admit to yourself that I've spilt so much ink on you that I might just think your _questions_ are what are insincere gasbags because you hardly ever demonstrate to me that you've ever understood anything I've said. So why on earth should I keep trying? I don't have all the time in the world just for you, but that's apparently the level you're asking for, and you won't let me off whatever hook you think you have me on until you get what you want, but I have no idea what that is because it certainly couldn't be anything I say because your intellectual immune system puts cotton in your ears. Or rather, you hear it, but you drag your feet when it comes to trying to understand what I say from the inside. You can sit out there, outside of my thought-pattern, if you want, but that doesn't mean that I have to devote unending levels of energy on you. I say all the above as preface. Why is Pirsig a Hegelian? Partly because of how he moves from Hume to Kant, in ZMM, and then moves the next step by taking history seriously. Pirsig takes seriously the idea that our ideas evolve in a dialectical fashion, which was an idea most forcefully injected into the history of European philosophy by Hegel (so say many historiographers). Why is that important? Because ahistoricism from Plato to Descartes to Kant is bad. Is any of this mindblowing? No. Does this evacuate the feeling I have about the importance of reading Pirsig (or Dewey for that matter) as a Hegelian? No. Am I hiding something? Not exactly, though it is closer to the thought that the ideas are in for repair. I take time on ideas, I don't have the best ones at the tip of my tongue. I read a lot. I like reading. I also do a lot of work on a lot of different things _other_ than Pirsig, so I have a lot of stuff floating around, a lot of different intellectual projects to attend to. I have to work on Emerson and Hawthorne in the tradition of American Romanticism; the postcolonial situation from Shakespeare's The Tempest to Gloria Anzaldua's The Borderlands; American Indian fiction as it negotiates Western forms and cultural situation; read the Western canon from Beowulf to DeLillo. And a lot of the ideas that I leap off of are not on wikipedia. I reference the people I've read on X that have influenced my thinking, and you get all upset, as if you don't send massive emails regularly to the MD that are not just huge, pasted blockquotes from wikipedia or the Stanford Phil-Encyc, or typed in from Pirsig or some essay you've read recently. I'm sorry I don't have the patience to find the most perfectest of Brandom passages to articulate Hegel. Something tells me it wouldn't work, and that's partly because I've never found your blockposts very useful. Most of the time books and essays should just be read by people who want to read them. You can tease them, you can suggest them, but their utility is going to be found be reading the whole of them, not in pasted form (which is apparently how you like your knowledge). So, no thank you. I'll pass on the easy victory because I can't do it. I thought I _had_ used things that you did understand (like differentiating a classical empiricist who goes in for the Myth of the Given from a post-Kantian empiricist who doesn't), but you are apparently demanding more concerted effort on my part than I can give you. Score another victory for you Dave. You've shown, once again, that I'm a fraud. How do you feel? Do you feel like you're learning anything by it? Do you feel like others are learning something from these demonstrations? Do you feel like you're providing a useful service to the MD? For anyone who wants the formulations again (in context), that I think are still decent if completely lost in Dave's reply (again revealing that he doesn't actually care): ----- 11/03 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). ----- 11/05 DMB said: I wonder about your use of Hegel, Matt. Isn't it oxymoronic to even say "Hegelian empiricist"? Isn't that like saying "Humean idealist" or "Rortarian Platonist"? Matt: I don't think it's oxymoronic. Like I said, I'm thinking particularly of Dewey, who was deeply impressed by Hegel's historicism and holism. Think of it this way: pre-Kantian empiricism is loaded down with the Myth of the Given. Pragmatists are, in some fashion, empiricists who are not so loaded. That means something purified empiricism of that Myth. I think Hegel is someone who can do that purification. Was Hegel an empiricist? Well, only in a post-Kantian sense, following out Kant's claim that the only one who can be an empirical realist is a transcendental idealist. But I'm not really interested in what pigeonhole Hegel really falls into, only with the philosophical traditions he played an important role in initiating (historicism and holism). ----- Matt > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:49:52 -0700 > Subject: Re: [MD] The Hero's journey > > > Matt: > I don't know if this is the post you just dismissed as old and full of > bullshit but I have made some points and asked you some questions. I don't > think they are stale bullshit. They're fresh and sincere enough. I've issued > a little challenge and I definitely mean "little". I've asked you to simply > explain what you mean. That doesn't seem like too much to ask, especially in > this context. Please don't run from that little challenge. I imagine everyone > would really like to know what your claim means. (Pirsig is Hegelian.) > > dmb says: > > I "jumped to the conclusion" that you were saying there was nothing > > empirical because you said it's just a matter of taste. I quoted you > > saying, "It's just a different taste," you said, "like people who like > > chocolate on their pancakes, but butterscotch on their ice cream". Why > > pretend the basis of my objection is some big mysteriously hidden motive? > > I'm simply objecting to what you said and now I've quoted that statement > > again. Obviously, my point is to contradict your claim by saying it's not > > just a matter of taste. > > The idea that I've jumped to some wild conclusion is almost as ridiculous > > as the idea that you "don't really see the difference" between empirical > > and not. It's simply not believable. Gee, what's the difference between > > much and none? > > > > > > Matt said to dmb: > > I was using obscure jargon? I was using well-known names in the history of > > philosophy. And how do I know who will find such short-hand labeling > > useful? Isn't a little condescending to think that your interlocutors > > can't handle a certain kind of discourse? > > > > dmb says: > > I think your use philosophical jargon or even just words like > > "interlocutor" and "discourse" is pretentious, ostentatious and unhelpful. > > I suppose it's plausible that your "philosophical formulas using historical > > figures do have a precise philosophical import" but why not just say what > > you mean so that everyone can understand what you're saying? If it was your > > intention to exclude most people from this precise import, then I'd > > understand your choices as an "interlocutor". Assuming there are > > substantial thoughts behind your name-dropping formulas, I think a more > > inclusive strategy would be appropriate here. Is there anyone here who > > "gets" what you're saying when you do it that way? > > > > > > Anyone? > > > > Anyone? Please raise your hand if you can say what Matt means. > > > > > > (crickets chirping) > > > > I'm not raising my hand either, Matt. Your formulas have always been way > > too vague for me and you never want to say what they mean. This lack of > > explanation leads me to suspect that they're all borrowed, half-understood > > and just as vague to you. I suspect you CAN'T say what they mean but I'd be > > more than happy to be shown that I'm wrong about that. You could score a > > victory by explaining what your formulas mean, precisely, and everyone else > > would win just by knowing what you mean for once. I'd be the only loser. > > Wouldn't that be lovely? Go ahead, prove my suspicions are baseless. > > > > Matt said to DMB: > > As far as I can tell, you're saying this to downplay my claim about Hegel's > > influence on Dewey, or at least as how you perceive what _my_ claim entails > > (versus what the exact same claim would entail in your hands), but I'm just > > thinking of the Dewey of "From Absolutism to Experimentalism." (And if you > > remind me of Dewey's self-described break with Hegel in that essay, I'll > > just remind you that the Hegelians he was breaking from were the Absolute > > Hegelians that inhabited St. Louis and Oxford. Neither Dewey nor Rorty, > > Brandom, Robert Pippin, or Terry Pinkard are Absolute Hegelians, though I > > would call them all Hegelians.) > > > > dmb says: > > See, that's what I'm talking about. If you want to claim that somebody is > > Hegelian in some sense (but not an Absolute Hegelian), then why not just > > say what you mean? In what sense is anyone a Hegelian and why does that > > matter? What's the point? What's the idea? I guess it would be safe to > > assume that you think Pirsig or Dewey is Hegelian in the sense that they've > > adopted some form of some of Hegel's ideas. Okay, what ideas and in what > > form? Why wouldn't you want to say exactly how they are Hegelian? That term > > could mean quite a number of things, right? > > > > > > Matt said: > > So, you're saying you're not going to read Hegel to find out what Dewey > > thought was good in him because Pirsig, among others, disavows one piece of > > Hegel? (And, because you won't read Hegel, you can't even be sure whether > > Pirsig is disavowing one piece or the whole thing.) I read people like > > Pippin and Pinkard on what Hegel really meant, and the stigma of the > > Absolute Hegelians' interpretation of what the "Absolute" meant tends to go > > away. (Though even then, I don't really feel inclined to talk about the > > "Absolute.") > > > > > > dmb replies: > > > > There you go again. It's like saying that you have a really great idea but > > you just can't show it to anyone right now. It's in the repair. It's at the > > cleaners right now. You don't time to dust it off and can't be bothered to > > put it on display, but boy is it ever a great idea. Even if I read the > > whole of Hegel, I'd still have to guess what you mean. > > > > Seriously, what are you saying about the MOQ? What is Hegelian about it? In > > what sense is it Hegelian? The dialectical progression of history? The idea > > that reality is rational through and through? The idea that human suffering > > will be justified in the end? The rejection of sense certainty or > > worshipful attitude toward the state or the belief that history was > > wrapping things up in our time? "Hegelian" can mean so many things. Pick > > one or two meanings for the term, will you? Narrow it down for us. It > > doesn't have to come from my sarcastic list, of course. I'm just having fun > > there and showing you how ridiculous such a claim could be, if not > > qualified. Qualify it. Say something specific. 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
