On Nov 19, 2011, at 11:36 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> dmb answered in a nutshell:
>
> Relativism is the view that truth is relative to the culture or the
> individual, that there is no way to say that one truth is better than another.
Marsha:
Again, you are conflating cultural relativism and epistemological relativism.
Do you have a source for your definition? Here is something I found in SEP:
"Relativism is not a single doctrine but a family of views whose common theme
is that some central aspect of experience, thought, evaluation, or even reality
is somehow relative to something else." Here is a simple definition:
noun Philosophy .
any theory holding that criteria of judgment are relative, varying
withindividuals and their environments.
(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/relativism)
Marsha:
Please note, dmb, there is no use of the phrase "subjective, capricious" in
either quote or in LILA.
> Here's the kind of thing I have in mind. It's from chapter 22 of Lila...
>
> "The gulf existed between between Victorian evolutionists and twentieth
> century relativists. The Victorians such as Morgan, Tyler, and Spencer
> presumed all primitive societies were early forms of "Society" itself and
> were trying to "grow" into a complete "civilization" like that of Victorian
> England. Cultural relativists held that it is unscientific to interpret
> values in culture B by the values of culture A... Cultures are unique
> historical patterns which contain their own values and cannot be judged in
> terms of the values of other cultures. The cultural relativists, backed by
> Boas's doctrines of scientific empiricism, virtually wiped out the
> credibility of the older Victorian evolutionists... The new cultural
> relativism became popular because it was a ferocious instrument for the
> dominance of intellect over society.
"The gulf existed between Victorian evolutionists and twentieth-century
relativists. The Victorians such as Morgan, Tylor and Spencer presumed all
primitive societies were early forms of 'Society' itself and were trying to
'grow' into a complete 'civilization' like that of Victorian England. The
relativists, following Boas' 'historical reconstruction,' stated that there is
no empirical scientific evidence for a 'Society' toward which all primitive
societies are heading.
"Cultural relativists held that it is unscientific to interpret values in
culture B by the values of culture A. It would be wrong for an Australian
Bushman anthropologist to come to New York and find people backward and
primitive because hardly anyone could throw a boomerang properly. It is equally
wrong for a New York anthropologist to go to Australia and find a Bushman
backward and primitive because he cannot read or write. Cultures are unique
historical patterns which contain their own values and cannot be judged in
terms of the values of other cultures. The cultural relativists, backed by
Boas' doctrines of scientific empiricism, virtually wiped out the credibility
of the older Victorian evolutionists and gave to anthropology a shape it has
had ever since.
(LILA)
Marsha:
Clearly this section is discussing cultural relativism, not epistemological
relativism.
> "When people asked, "If no culture, including a Victorian culture, can say
> what is right and what is wrong, then how can we ever *know* what is right
> and what is wrong? the answer was, "That's easy. Intellectuals will tell you.
> Intellectuals, unlike people of studiable cultures, know what they're talking
> and writing about, because what *they* say isn't culturally relative. What
> they say is absolute. This is because intellectuals follow science, which is
> objective. An objective observer does not have relative opinions because he
> is nowhere within the world he observes."
Marsha:
Here the subject is the same: cultural relativism. And the reasoning that
assumes intellectuals follow science which is OBJECTIVE is wishful thinking,
and points more towards the Intellectual Level being a formalized
subject/object metaphysical assumption where the paramount demand is for
rational, objective knowledge, which is free from the taint of any subjectivity
like emotions, inclinations, fears and compulsions in order to pursue, study
and research in an unbiased and rational manner. There is nothing in any of
these quotes to suggest epistemological relativism is subject/object based.
> "Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality
> supports this dominance of intelligence over society. It says intellect is a
> higher level of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level
> than society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it for a
> society to destroy an idea. But having said this, the Metaphysics of Quality
> goes on to say that science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed
> to take over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object
> science has no provision for morals. Subject-object science is only concerned
> with facts. Morals have no objective reality. You can look through a
> microscope or telescope or oscilloscope for the rest of your life and you
> will never find a single moral. There aren't any there. They are all in your
> head. They exist only in your imagination.
> From the perspective of a subject-object science, the world is a completely
> purposeless, valueless place. There no point in anything. Nothing is right
> and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like machinery. There is
> nothing morally wrong with being lazy, nothing morally wrong with lying, with
> theft, with suicide, with murder, with genocide. There is nothing morally
> wrong because there are no morals, just functions.
> Now that intellect was in command of society for the first time in history,
> was this the intellectual pattern it was going to run society with?"
Marsha:
There is nothing in any of these quotes to suggest epistemological relativism
is subject/object based or lacks the ability to devise methods for determining
betterness. The MoQ has such a structure, the four-tiered, evolutionary,
hierarchical level structure:
Anthony:
“Intellectual values include truth, justice, freedom, democracy and, trial by
jury. It’s worth noting that the MOQ follows a pragmatic notion of truth so
truth is seen as relative in his system while Quality is seen as absolute. In
consequence, the truth is defined as the highest quality intellectual
explanation at a given time."
RMP:
If the past is any guide to the future this explanation must be taken
provisionally; as useful until something better comes along. One can then
examine intellectual realities the same way he examines paintings in an art
gallery, not with an effort to find out which one is the ‘real’ painting, but
simply to enjoy and keep those that are of value. There are many sets of
intellectual reality in existence and we can perceive some to have more quality
than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our history and
current patterns of values. (Pirsig, 1991, p.103)”
(McWatt,Anthony, 'AN INTRODUCTION TO ROBERT PIRSIG’S METAPHYSICS OF
QUALITY' 2005, p.147)
Marsha:
The Buddhist have long recognized conventional truth as relative:
"The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of
truth (Sanskrit: satya) in Buddhist discourse: a "relative" or commonsense
truth (Pāli: sammuti sacca), and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth
(Pāli: paramattha sacca)."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths)
Marsha:
And the correlation between conventional truth and static quality has been duly
noted by Anthony:
"‘Static quality’ refers to anything that can be conceptualised and is a
synonym for the conditioned in Buddhist philosophy."
(McWatt, Anthony,'AN INTRODUCTION TO ROBERT PIRSIG’S METAPHYSICS OF
QUALITY', 2005, p.29)
> dmb says:
> There are many paths by which one can arrive at relativism. Scientific
> objectivity is just one of them. But we can see what it amounts to, and what
> it amounts to is a disaster. Nothing is wrong and nothing is right, it's all
> just mechanistic functions. "Is this the intellectual pattern that was going
> to run society?" I think Pirsig's question is asked with urgency and alarm. I
> think it's quite clear that he's identifying relativism as a problem to be
> solved. This is consistent with the fact the he takes the charge of
> relativism against the Sophists to be offensive slander.
Marsha:
In my opinion the urgency and alarm that RMP addresses is SOM, which admits no
value in an intellectual pattern. The Victorian examples you cite address
cultural relativism, not truth as relativistic, not epistemological relativism
.
> dmb:
> I really don't think you have any reason to wonder what the word means when I
> use it. These passages support and elaborate upon the little nutshell
> description. That's how Pirsig uses the word, how I use the word and that's
> how it's commonly used. Sam Harris is pulling his hair out over that fact
> that we can't say, scientifically, that female genital mutilation is wrong.
> The ghost of Boas still haunts us. Call an exorcist.
Marsha:
I think I have proven that you are conflating cultural relativism and
epistemological relativism, where the MoQ rejects social level judgements for a
higher order, hierarchical understanding of truth. Your conflating the social
level values with intellectual level values is not supported by the MoQ.
“…if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it becomes
possible for more than one set of truths to exist. Then one doesn't seek the
absolute Truth.' One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual explanation
of things with the knowledge that if the past is any guide to the future this
explanation must be taken provisionally; as useful until something better comes
along. One can then examine intellectual realities the same way one examines
paintings in an art gallery, not with an effort to find out which one is the
'real' painting, but simply to enjoy and keep those that are of value. There
are many sets of intellectual reality in existence and we can perceive some to
have more quality than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our
history and current patterns of values."
(LILA, Chapter 8)
___
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
