Hello everyone On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dan quoted a thing about James: > "James made no concerted attempt to show or prove that the > principle of pragmatism was correct. In his lectures, he put it into > practice, solving problems about squirrels, telling us the meaning of > truth, explaining how we can understand propositions about human > freedom or about religious matters. But in the end, inspired by these > applications, we are encouraged to adopt the maxim and see how > well things work out when we do so." > (SEP http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/) > > Dan said: > This is what I see you [Dave, but probably Matt, too] doing by > sweeping away such questions as: is there a sound when a forest > with no one around and does Don's dog dish exist when he walks out > of the room. You're in effect telling us (like James) that high quality > intellectual patterns work well in the real world so we should forget > about questioning them. We should just take them for granted. I don't > like that, though. That doesn't seem like philosophy to me... it seems > more like giving in... > > Matt: > I thought you might be making this move.
Dan: I've been attempting to make this move all along... though not with the eloquence of others like the author of the SEP article. I thought the quote might help shed light on my reasoning. Matt: > Whatever about Jame, I > believe that you are here conflating a globally-applicable question > with specifically-applicable questions. (And this is the difference > between a global, Cartesian doubt and specific doubts about specific > context-dependent things. Of the former, Peirce, a good > anti-Cartesian, called "fake doubt.") Dan: I thought we (earlier) agreed that there was no distinction between globally-applicable questions and specifically-applicable questions Matt: > > The thought-experiments having to do with trees and dog dishes are > there to pump our intuitive responses to a situation that has nothing > to do with trees or dog dishes _specifically_. Dan: I agree. And I think they have... Matt: > What it seems like you > are suggesting is that by not taking "what dog dish/tree/X?" seriously, > we are thereby eliminating our ability to question specific things about > dog dishes, trees, any particular X. That, by saying "what dog dish?" > is usually a bad question, we are saying, "Shut your mouth and don't > question reality!" Dan: Not at all! In fact, this discussion we're engaged in is all about questioning reality. If I believed we should shut our respective mouths, I wouldn't be struggling here attempting to answer your posts. I'd just go away. I might first make some derogatory statements about how silly this is, however. Matt: > The latter, indeed, isn't philosophy. However, I > think thinking of "what dog dish?" as an emblem for the Socratic > spirit is a bad idea. And partly because of how this conversation has > rollicked forward. Neither Dave nor I has ever wanted to stop > questioning specific presuppositions, but your question applies to > _all_ presuppositions, and so is about the process of > presuppositioning. Dan: Yes. I am questioning our perception of reality. It is a common-sense notion that conceptual objects have permanency... that they're there whether we can empirically verify them or not. You and Dave seem to be defending this notion though of course I might be reading you both wrongly. You seem to be saying some presuppositions are true because they are globally accepted while others are on shaky ground on account of being specifically accepted. My thoughts run something like this: by passing over or ignoring the question concerning "what tree?" or "what dish?" we set up a presupposed scenario that seems to mirror the common-sense reality we all agree upon. I'm not saying trees and dishes do not exist. I'm questioning the validity of our belief that those presupposed objects exist apart from the experience that informs us they exist. I don't know that there is an answer one way or another. Matt: And I don't think the three of us disagree > importantly on Pirsig's position on ghosts/presuppositions. Dan: No, I don't see that either. Matt: > The only > thing I disagree with is seeing a question that applies to everything as > having, therefore, a special kind of connection to all questions about > specific things (what I called "emblematic" earlier). I see questions > that apply to everything as _as_ specific as the other questions, and > therefore a specific kind of question that can be in and out of point > depending on circumstance (it is specifically about "everything"). Dan: Ah... so do I. Again, I don't see that we're disagreeing so much as we're coming at this from different angles of questioning. Thank you, Dan 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
