Hey Mark"
"Relativism" is a dirty word. Like "solipsism", it is a term of abuse used by
philosophers against their enemies. Anyone who willingly wears those labels is
either very brave or very foolish.
In the MOQ, truth is provisional and plural. The MOQ rejects ideas like
objective truth, absolute truth, fixed and eternal truth, or any kind of single
exclusive truth but the relativist thinks there is no truth as such, at least
not about anything human, about anything beyond the physical facts. What's
"true" is just whatever we agree upon from within our own ethno-centric
perspective, from within our own intersubjective space. This is exactly why Sam
Harris and lots of other people think that Richard Rorty is a relativist, for
example. This is why Pirsig thinks Boas was a relativists, for another example.
"Pluralism" is a much better word for the pragmatic theory of truth. James has
been misinterpreted as pushing relativism since the day he first published,
especially among the positivists and the absolutists, but James himself
considered such charges to be "impudent slander" and fought hard to explain
that the pragmatic truth is "wedged and controlled" like no other. Marsha's
fondness for relativism can only be maintained by ignoring Pirsig's
conspicuously negative comments about relativism (and the role it plays in
undermining truth, morality and intellectual level values). Pirsig saw Plato's
charge against the Sophists as vicious slander and he denies it quite
emphatically. This occurs at the philosophical and dramatic climax of the
story. Getting rid of relativism is one of the central points in taking on both
Platonism and SOM.
She thinks the intellectual level can't escape from SOM and she thinks the MOQ
is a form of relativism. I think that's profoundly wrong. It makes the MOQ into
it's own worst enemy.
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