>> On Nov 22, 2011, at 9:33 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Steve: >>> 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.
>> Mark >> 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?" Hi Steve, The bias against wielding the term "relativism" is one of Western-centric SOM. The MoQ, as a bridge between East and West, should be able to handle that Buddhist's 'conventional truths' and MoQ 'static patterns' exist relative to a multiple of other causes (patterns) and conditions (patterns). Marsha ___ 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
