David H quoted Marsha:
"The word 'truth' does not interest me." (18th August) "You might like to
classify patterns as truths, but I do not. " (17th August) "I would say that I
value the MoQ where the fundamental principle is the idea that the world is
nothing but value(Dynamic/static); there is nothing additional called 'truth'."
David H commented:
As if 'truth' is additional to value? This is the crux of your
misunderstanding. Truth can be value and truth is value. Truth, just as
everything else, is a part of value. Truth is one of the better things to
value in fact. ...You are fighting a 'truth' which has been defeated long
ago. Quality first, then truth. There's nothing wrong with truth. In fact,
it's very good.
dmb says:
I think that's right. Marsha's mistake, basically, is to use the MOQ's critique
of objective truth against the MOQ itself. The MOQ says that truth is a
particular kind of static value, the highest species of static value. If we
express her comments in the MOQ's terms, it's pretty easy to see how convoluted
and incoherent they are:
"The term 'static patterns of intellectual value' does not interest me." "You
might like to classify patterns of static intellectual quality as patterns of
static intellectual quality, but I do not." "I value the MOQ's idea that the
world in nothing but value (DQ/sq): there is nothing additional called static
intellectual value."
In short, it's contradictory in the extreme. She likes the idea that the world
is nothing but value but then excludes the highest form of static values from
that world of values.
The MOQ defines truth as a static intellectual pattern within (and subordinate
to) Quality or immediate experience. This makes the MOQ's truth empirical.
Since it rejects the correspondence theory, the MOQ's pragmatic truth is also
plural, perspectival, and generally far more flexible than the Platonic or
objective kinds of "Truth". In other words, this definition of truth drops all
pretenses of a single right and real truth and instead, truth is more modestly
defined as what we can have right now, in our context and in our particular
situations. It is "what works" in the sense of actual, practical value. Truth
is an intellectual species of the good in the same way that health is a
biological species of the good. We value fitness and excellence for all ways of
living life: intellectually, socially and biologically.
"James said, 'Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a
category distinct from good, and coordinate with it.' He said, 'The true is the
name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief.' TRUTH IS A
SPECIES OF GOOD. That was EXACTLY what is meant by the MOQ. Truth is a static
intellectual pattern WITHIN a larger entity called Quality." (Lila -- Emphasis
is Pirsig's)
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