Steve said to dmb:
I'll admit to being a "math nerd" philosopher. Now, can you explain how the
response of the "neurotic artist" philosopher with regard to
realism/anti-realism is superior? I understand that to you my response feels
nerdy, but I don't know what you find wrong with my argument if anything, and
you haven't made an alternative case for a MOQer/pragmatist position on
realism/anti-realism.
dmb says:
Like I already said, that is a debate in analytic philosophy and it's hardly
relevant to pragmatism. I'm not offering a superior position on the issue. I'm
saying that pragmatism is beyond that debate. That's the title of Hildebrand's
book, in fact; "BEYOND REALISM AND ANTIREALISM". (Yes, Rorty's paper by that
title is included in Hildebrand's bibliography.) In any case, I was making a
larger point about being a "math nerd" philosopher.
To put it roughly, as Pirsig says, squareness can be defined as an absence of
Quality, as an inability to perceive Quality. Squareness is the disease in
philosophy that Pirsig is trying to cure. As you may recall, Pirsig conducted a
little thought experiment to test the reality of Quality. What happens to the
world if you subtract Quality from it, he asked? Grocery stores were radically
altered, art disappeared, etc.. The world became unrecognizable, not to mention
bleak as hell. The only things that remained the same were our forms of
rationality, things like math and formal logic were unaffected by the absence
of Quality. Why should that be, he wondered? Math nerd philosophy is exactly
what's wrong with philosophy.
This is not to say that logic and math have no value. Pirsig goes on, of
course, to explain that classically-minded fact-loving Aristotelians don't
necessarily have to be nerds, squares or assholes. He goes on to explain how
physicists are creative artists in their own way, how the motorcycle mechanic
and the philosopher can be deeply engaged artists too. This pushes back against
every otherworldly nerd-cock logic-chopper who ever infected the world with his
quasi-autistic squareness.
Dewey said that certainty is something like the psychological equivalent of
physical security. The notion of "Cartesian anxiety" almost seems too specific.
I mean, the desire for philosophical certainty goes all the way back to first
philosophers, the pre-Socratic philosophers. Math nerds were among the first
squares in Western Civilization and the founders of analytic philosophy were
math nerds. It's poison and the MOQ is supposed to be the antidote. The whole
point is to reverse this absence of Quality, this squareness in our
philosophies.
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