Hi Mark,

On 11/22/11, 118 <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> Could you be more specific?


Steve:
I probably could if you say what you want me to be more specific
about, but I'll gladly say some more general stuff.,..

dmb has long been trying to use the term relativism as a way of trying
to criticize certain perspectives including mine, Matt's, Rorty's, and
Marsha's, but dmb doesn't have anything that we don't have that can,
say, be used against the arguments of the Nazis. He doesn't claim any
foundation that we can't claim. Whether are are talking about moral or
epistemic issues, there are no arguments that he can make that the
rest of us so-called relativists are prevented from making. With
regard to relativism, there is just no pragmatic difference between
his own philosophical position and the ones he criticizes.

The only sort of relativism that is cause for concern is the moral
paralysis sort. But none of us here suffer from that problem. That
sort of paralysis among liberal intellectuals was becoming a serious
problem in the multi-culty 90's (when Lila came out), but morally
paralyzed relativists are getting harder and harder to find (thank
goodness). I suggest that dmb try to find one of these people to argue
with, or better yet, learn to distinguish between some dangerous sort
of relativism and the Pirsigian, pragmatic, and Buddhist provisional
views of epistemic and ethical truth that SOMers will see as
relativism.

Why would an MOQer even want to wield an SOM-laden term like
"relativism"? It is half of the old SOM Platypus,
relativism/absolutism. It is a term based on an SOM premise that we
deny. It is just another version of the wrong-headed question, "is the
Quality in the subject or in the object?"

Best,
Steve




> On Nov 22, 2011, at 9:33 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Marsha,
>>
>> You have raised a lot of good points here. It seems that dmb's
>> argument is with Ant McWatt as much as it is with you though for some
>> reason he hasn't acknowledged that fact. dmb will, as always, have a
>> tough time articulating what particular sort of relativism--some
>> dangerous sort?--that applies to you but not equally well to James and
>> Pirsig.
>>
>> Best,
>> Steve
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

Reply via email to