Hello everyone On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dan, Matt, > > It seems that your conversation and mine with dmb have converged to a > similar place. DMB has long seemed to me to be confused about what > Rorty means by intersubjectivity and conversational constraints on > knowledge as if there is something dangerously relativistic about his > notion of justification. At the same time, he insists that "truth" > needs to be disentangled from the notion of objectivity in favor of > the pragmatic theory of truth which says that saying something is true > means no more nor less than that the belief is justified in a > particular time and place. Justification cannot be distinguished from > truth, he says. Otherwise, the only alternative is the SOM > correspondence notion of truth.
Dan: >From what I gathered, Dave wanted to adhere to to common sense notions like the concept of object permanence... that if a philosophy doesn't abide by that, then it is useless. I saw that as the end of any possible discussion, especially since many aspects of the MOQ go against common sense notions. I've never read Rorty so I have no way of agreeing or disagreeing with him. Steve: > Obviously I disagree. Just as Pirsig's calling inorganic and > biological patterns "objective" and social and intellectual patterns > "subjective" was an attempt by Pirsig to continue to get some mileage > out of the terms after dropping the subject-object picture, > "intersubjectivity" is Rorty's attempt to make some pragmatic sense of > objectivity. And I think these two moves amount to pretty much the > same thing in preserving usage of truth as distinguished from > justification. In Pirsig's cosmology, what supports the superiority of > biological over inorganic patterns and so on is there place in an > evolutionary hierarchy. So Pirsig's moral structure depends on > thinking that inorganic patterns existed before anyone existed to > verify them. Dan: >From what I understand, it is a high quality idea to believe inorganic quality patterns existed before anyone could verify them. But I think the moral structure of the MOQ depends on the realization that experience and Dynamic Quality are synonymous. The idea that matter comes first is a high quality idea... but that idea springs from experience, Dynamic Quality. Quality comes first, not inorganic patterns. Steve: > For Rorty, (and also obviously for Pirsig), "what guarantees the > objectivity of the world in which we live is that this world is common > to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications that we > have with other men we receive from them ready-made harmonious > reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not come from us and at > the same time we recognize in them, because of their harmony, the work > of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to > fit the world of our sensations, we think we may infer that these > reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus it is that we > know we haven't been dreaming. It is this harmony, this quality if you > will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can ever know." > Of course we know that this is also how Pirsig sees the situation as > well since he wrote that bit in ZAMM. Apparently Pirsig didn't see any > non-conversation constraints on knowledge, either. I would add here > when Pirsig says that the piles of analogues upon analogues is the > only reality "we can ever know," that that reality is all we ever mean > by "reality." We only get into SOM when we think of comparing that > reality to some more real reality. Dan: I've always taken subject/object metaphysics to represent the common sense notion that reality is composed of objects that exist independently of the subjective observer. In the MOQ these "harmonious reasonings" are secondary to Dynamic Quality. I would add the qualifier that "this quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can ever [intellectually] know." >Steve: > By the same token, to say that the dog dish exists whether or not > anyone is there to verify it, just as to say that the world was > roundish even before people were in any position to justify that > belief, is _not_ to backslide into SOM. It is merely to value some > reasoning that harmonizes well with our sensations and other valued > sets of reasonings. It is not to assert (nor to deny) a _real_ reality > compared to which our conceptions are mere shadows. Dan I thought that went without saying. I know some people on this list want to holler SOM every time they fail to understand something, as if it is some kind of dirty word, but I think the majority of us have moved past that notion. >Steve: > Like pragmatism, based on the above from ZAMM, the MOQ is neither > realism nor anti-realism (such as idealism), but a third way. On the > other hand, I think in LC Pirsig more recently identified the MOQ with > idealism, so I could be wrong. When I have time, I'll try to dig up > more quotes that might answer whether the MOQ is, like pragmatism, a > "neither/nor" with respect to realism/anti-realism. In the mean time, > I'd be interested in your thoughts. Dan: I think idealism and materialism are both part of the MOQ. The common sense way we view reality is more in line with materialism these days what with our cultural leanings towards science and objectivity. I believe RMP noted that in LC and that it might behoove people to learn more about philosophic idealism. 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
