Dan quoted SEP:
"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."
Dan commented on the quote:
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... ...I thought the quote might help shed light on
my reasoning.
dmb says:
I don't follow your reasoning and I wonder where you got the impression that
that I'm sweeping away questions or taking answers for granted. The quote seems
to be saying that James didn't present pragmatism as any kind of foundational
philosophy. It is a method for determining truths rather than a truth to be
proven. And to be consistent about things, the best way to determine the truth
of pragmatism is to try it out. I'm not sure what this quote has to do with
what I was doing, which was talking about a dude's dog dish in terms of the
infant learning "object permanence" and the perception of everyday objects AS
OPPOSED to metaphysical objectivity or scientific objectivity.
I was making a case for the empirical basis of ordinary objects like dog
dishes. I was also saying that the analogues and ghost are the inventions that
have been fit enough to survive. We can't think outside the mythos and, for the
most part, the mythos works. Just as your biological structures have evolved
over billions of years so that your very body is the product of countless
upward evolutionary latches, so is the mythos and logos. I mean, even the MOQ
evolutionary hierarchy is really just a way to organize all the static stuff
that's already in the encyclopedia, you know? The box cars full of static
patterns, the one in Pirsig's analogy, is miles long. Can you imagine what that
kind of weight and speed would do if it hit a wall or derailed? James used the
analogy of a flywheel. That momentum is what keeps us from converting back to
the caves with every generation and it works on the personal level too so that
you don't have to learn how to tie your shoes every day.
Dan said to Matt and dmb:
...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.
dmb says:
Again, I don't know where you're getting these conclusions. In fact, as I
explained, it was my impression that the dog dish was actually known by an
actual person whereas the tree that falls when nobody's around is strictly
hypothetical. It's a question about a thing that is not known by any actual
person. That's why we can rightly ask, "what tree?". But if don is talking
about the dish he just saw 10 seconds ago and we ask, "what dish?", I think we
are being un-empirical and excessively skeptical. If things like dog dishes
sometimes vanished, we might have some empirical reason to be skeptical but, as
far as I know, nobody has ever experienced such a disappearing act, except for
pretend in magic shows and the like.
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