Hi Matt, Matt: > I'd never really thought about it before, but since you juxtaposed > Rorty's redefinition of objectivity with Pirsig's, one can see how > Rorty dovetails here with what Dan was calling Pirsig's idealism. I > don't take this idealism to be opposed to realism, but rather that > third way. Dan fancies bringing it to bear with a strong Cartesian > and Berkeleyan flavor, which I think is misleading, but it does come > out in Pirsig in those contexts when he's is facing down those > scientistic and materialistic elements, so it shouldn't be that > surprising. Ultimately it has to be Hegelian-Deweyan to be the third > way, which is where I think Pirsig ends up. > > (And with no segue:)...
Steve: The connection is nevertheless clear to me. Matt: ...One reason I've lost more and more interest in > philosophical disputation is that once one realizes that a stated > philosophical position--any ism, say--may not be what the stater > thinks it is, then it becomes more and more difficult to diagnose and > analyze properly a position. This shouldn't be surprising for a > pragmatist because philosophical positions are just covers for habits, > which is to say that a position only ever comes into existence > between two conversants. (Not exactly true: only as a reaction to a > state of affairs. But often it is a person saying something.) So > really, analyzing an ism is analyzing a set of habits, which is to say a > whole set of people who have reacted a certain way. But if you want > an example of how squirrely people can be, just look at Mitt Romney > in his recent interview with Fox. It can be hard to figure out what a > position is sometimes. Steve: Your point is well-taken, but not _that_ well-taken since I will probably continue to bang my head against that wall before I learn my lesson about philosophical isms. Matt: > My favorite formulation of the issue is Richard Bernstein's, from his > book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. Bernstein's first move in > the book is to describe the condition that creates the two kinds of > responses: Cartesian Anxiety. As a good Deweyan, he wanted to > describe something like a psychological condition for a philosophical > response because in a certain way (that we still don't have a good > grasp of), psychology and concepts dovetail. Philosophical > problematics are as much a response to life as building a fire, prayer, > and belching. My loss of nerve when it comes to disputation comes > from the fact that it has become difficult for me to find the center of > gravity to stated positions, such that they attain a relevant coherence > as responses to life. I can't figure, for example, if a person really > does have Cartesian Anxiety, or they're just saying a thing 'cuz it > seems like the thing to say. Steve: It can sometimes be hard to recognize the real thing as opposed to non-anxious parroting of common sense, but other times it seems very clear to me (such as in the hysteria that dmb sometimes works himself into) that Cartesian Anxiety is a good name for a significant psychological condition akin to the spiritual problem that Pirsig diagnosed in ZAMM (which is described as manifesting less as hysteria and more as the malaise of a funeral procession). 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
