Hi dmb, I wouldn't take Marsha too seriously. Her technique to to get a definition and then seek to show how it is wrong. As Ron says, it is a trap. I do not believe she has any intention of learning anything here, just promoting her own Jollies in obtaining correspondence which is antagonistic in nature.
Yes, Relativism is akin to Nihilism the way it is used by some in this forum. It is indeed the antithesis of Quality. As Marsha implies in her cat and mouse game, Quality must come from relativism. That is, something must be better than something else. Perhaps this can be construed by quality (small "q"), but not with Quality. The sense of quality is an illusory appearance of Quality. So as not to confuse with the term illusionary, it is provisional, to use your words. To say that "the Good" is relative creates an absolute truth which must be used to measure it. Quality itself is not an absolute truth, but an analogy for a devine ground (no religiosity intended). It can not be equated through any Structural Approach (more on that later in a post I am composing). It is hard to escape from the "linear" relativistic view of the world since our education is based on such a notion. If one submits Quality to the Western equations of reality, everything must be compared. Quality does not reside in an object or person, it gives birth to such things. Perhaps I am conflicting with Pirsig's presentation here, but such a statement would seem to come logically from the descriptions of Quality which he presents. I do not know much about Rorty except what I have learned in this forum. He is on my reading list. I am firmly on James' side in terms of pluralism, and enjoy reading the Pluralistic Universe, amongst others of his writings. Pluralism is the dialectic used to combat monism, imo. A deterministic world is pure monism as James would say. Pluralism gives rise to free will since it assumes distinct entities interplaying with each other. It is easy to get caught in this Free will debate since determinism and free will cannot be proven or disproven through epistemologies. However such approaches are mechanistic and therefore favor determinism. By nature, knowledge must be linear. It is such because it is a structural approach in philosophy. It cannot take a relational approach, which can be embodied by a never-ending dance. Morality comes from within and is not a result of observing a relative relationship. It could be said that Morality creates such relativity amongst other things. So to present it otherwise is putting the cart before the horse. Any relative approach would seem to end up getting caught up in Munchhausen's Trilemma. This too is nihilistic in my opinion. One is always searching for a structural ground which does not exist. We create knowledge from assumptions, such knowledge stands on shifting grounds. I have read the end of ZMM too many times to count... Cheers, Mark On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 11:12 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 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 > 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
