Plato himself on the matter.
SOCRATES: Is not rhetoric, taken generally, a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments; which is practised not only in courts and public assemblies, but in private houses also, having to do with all matters, great as well as small, good and bad alike, and is in all equally right, and equally to be esteemed—that is what you have heard? PHAEDRUS: Nay, not exactly that; I should say rather that I have heard the art confined to speaking and writing in lawsuits, and to speaking in public assemblies—not extended farther. SOCRATES: Then I suppose that you have only heard of the rhetoric of Nestor and Odysseus, which they composed in their leisure hours when at Troy, and never of the rhetoric of Palamedes? PHAEDRUS: No more than of Nestor and Odysseus, unless Gorgias is your Nestor, and Thrasymachus or Theodorus your Odysseus. SOCRATES: Perhaps that is my meaning. But let us leave them. And do you tell me, instead, what are plaintiff and defendant doing in a law court—are they not contending? PHAEDRUS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: About the just and unjust—that is the matter in dispute? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And a professor of the art will make the same thing appear to the same persons to be at one time just, at another time, if he is so inclined, to be unjust? PHAEDRUS: Exactly. SOCRATES: And when he speaks in the assembly, he will make the same things seem good to the city at one time, and at another time the reverse of good? PHAEDRUS: That is true. SOCRATES: Have we not heard of the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno), who has an art of speaking by which he makes the same things appear to his hearers like and unlike, one and many, at rest and in motion? PHAEDRUS: Very true. SOCRATES: The art of disputation, then, is not confined to the courts and the assembly, but is one and the same in every use of language; this is the art, if there be such an art, which is able to find a likeness of everything to which a likeness can be found, and draws into the light of day the likenesses and disguises which are used by others? PHAEDRUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Let me put the matter thus: When will there be more chance of deception—when the difference is large or small? PHAEDRUS: When the difference is small. SOCRATES: And you will be less likely to be discovered in passing by degrees into the other extreme than when you go all at once? PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: He, then, who would deceive others, and not be deceived, must exactly know the real likenesses and differences of things? PHAEDRUS: He must. SOCRATES: And if he is ignorant of the true nature of any subject, how can he detect the greater or less degree of likeness in other things to that of which by the hypothesis he is ignorant? PHAEDRUS: He cannot. SOCRATES: And when men are deceived and their notions are at variance with realities, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances? PHAEDRUS: Yes, that is the way. SOCRATES: Then he who would be a master of the art must understand the real nature of everything; or he will never know either how to make the gradual departure from truth into the opposite of truth which is effected by the help of resemblances, or how to avoid it? PHAEDRUS: He will not. SOCRATES: He then, who being ignorant of the truth aims at appearances, will only attain an art of rhetoric which is ridiculous and is not an art at all? PHAEDRUS: That may be expected. ----------------------------------------------------- DMB abstracting on Marsha Somehow she thinks this error can be explain away by simply contradicting herself: Even though she concludes that even static patterns are false, illusions, phantoms and ghosts, she also insists that this conclusion "does not translate into meaningless," she says, because, "patterns exist as value." Pirsig's "ghost" story is not intended to undermine his own conception of intellectual static patterns, of course. His aim is to undermine the "law of gravity" insofar as it is conceived as an eternal feature of the one only objective reality. When it is taken like that, then there is only one exclusive truth about gravity and Newton was the guy who discovered what was always there. Instead, Pirsig says the law was not discovered but invented. It is a very powerful, useful and otherwise valuable concept, i.e. it works as a concept. So long as it is understood to be a humanly constructed tool rather than an eternal reality, it is not false or illusory. Pirsig's ghosts, analogies and static patterns are ways of understanding physical laws prevent the false illusions. Pirsig's patterns prevent the reification of concepts like gravity. Plato was the super-reifier wherein goodness was not just a concept that refers to any number of good experiences but was a fixed and eternal reality unto itself. Truth, Beauty, Justice and just about any noble-sounding abstraction was treated as an actual thing somewhere beyond time and space - like the law a gravity. To use Pirsig's critique (of determinate positions like Platonism, objectivity or any kind of essentialism) against Pirsig's MOQ is like trying to melt water because you've mistaken it for ice. The ice-melting task has already been preformed and yet Marsha foolishly tries to liquidate the liquid and so the whole thing is overheated by about 100%. She wants to loosen the already loosened, thereby leaving everything so slippery that there's no grip or traction anywhere. Instead of a hierarchy of value, we get a picture of ever-changing soup wherein intellectual quality and nonsense are indistinguishable. Notice how much work it is just to untangle her use a single term? This same sort of exercise could be conducted on every term she uses. Can you imagine how long it would take to deal with the rest of the mistakes? I guess it would take at least 100 hours to clean up the mess. Even if I actually took the time, she'd just start spilling the same mess all over again the next day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrie i was really planning to make a follow -up on moral realism to be derived from the presented article concerning anti-foundationalism, but the positions taken by the actors are clear, as Pirsig states" reality is morality", covering the complete article in one stroke of the brush. The highlights ahead of us Plato opposes to vagueness in the philosophical discours using a metaphoric court/example. Pirsig opposes to vagueness etc,etc, etc...using the Moq as a proposal to avoid vagueness in the philosophical discours. Buchanan opposes to vagueness etc, etc This does not mean in any way (article about vagueness) that the unknown and the vaguness of this/that is to be disregarded. But clowning around with statements like "its turtles all the way down"is throwing sand in the bull's eye's and moreover it is surely so that metaphisikal turtles are capable of slowing down the discours. But ahead of the turtles, what strikes me the most is the resemblance/congruence of DMB's points and Plato's toughts on matters like this Btw , even the Ilica is a metaphor hidden in an analogy,aside of it all. Adrie 2013/4/10 david buchanan <[email protected]> > Wikipedia: > > Anti-foundationalism (also called nonfoundationalism) as the name implies, > is a term applied to any philosophy which rejects a foundationalist > approach, i.e. an anti-foundationalist is one who does not believe that > there is some fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or > foundation of inquiry and knowledge.[1] > > Anti-foundationalists use logical or historical/genealogical attacks on > foundational concepts (see especially Nietzsche and Foucault), often > coupled with alternative methods for justifying and forwarding intellectual > inquiry, such as the pragmatic subordination of knowledge to practical > action.[2] Foucault dismissed the search for a return to origins as > Platonic essentialism, preferring to stress the contingent nature of human > practices.[3] > Anti-foundationalists oppose metaphysical methods. Moral and ethical > anti-foundationalists are often criticized for moral relativism, but > anti-foundationalists often dispute this charge, offering alternative > methods of moral thought that they claim do not require foundations. Thus > while Charles Taylor accused Foucault of having "no order of human life, or > way we are, or human nature, that one can appeal to in order to judge or > evaluate between ways of life", Foucault nevertheless insists on the need > for continuing ethical enquiry without any universal system to appeal to.[4] > Niklas Luhmann used cybernetics to challenge the role of foundational > unities and canonical certainties.[5] > Totalisation and legitimation > Antifoundationalists opposed totalising visions of social, scientific or > historical reality, considering them to lack legitimation,[6] and > preferring local narratives instead. No social totality but a multitude of > local and concrete practices; “not a history but at best histories”.[7] In > such neopragmatism, there is no overall truth, merely an ongoing process of > better and more fruitful methods of edification.[8] Even our most taken for > granted categories for social analysis – of gender, sex, race, and class – > are considered by anti-essentialists like Marjorie Garber as social > constructs.[9] > Hope and fear > Stanley Fish distinguishes between what he calls “antifoundationalist > theory hope” and “antifoundationalist theory fear” - finding them however > both equally illusory.[10] > Fear of the corrosive effects of antifoundationalism was widespread in the > late twentieth century, anticipating such things as a cultural meltdown and > moral anarchy,[11] or (at the least) a loss of the necessary critical > distance to allow for leverage against the status quo.[12] For Fish, > however, the threat of a loss of objective standards of rational enquiry > with the disappearance of any founding principle was a false fear: far from > opening the way to an unbridled subjectivity, antifoundationalism leaves > the individual firmly entrenched within the conventional context and > standards of enquiry/dispute of the discipline/profession/habitus within > which s/he is irrevocably placed.[13] > By the same token, however, the antifoundationalist hope of escaping local > situations through awareness of the contingency of all such situations – > through recognition of the conventional/rhetorical nature of all claims to > master principles - that hope is to Fish equally foredoomed by the very > nature of the situational consciousness, the all-embracing social and > intellectual context, in which every individual is separately enclosed.[14] > Fish has also noted how, in contradistinction to hopes of an emancipatory > outcome from antifoundationalism, anti-essentialist theories arguing for > the absence of a transcontextual point of reference have been put to > conservative and neo-conservative, as well as progressive, ends.[15] Thus, > for example, John Searle has offered an account of the construction of > social reality fully compatible with the acceptance stance of “the man who > is at home in his society, the man who is chez lui in the social > institutions of the society...as comfortable as the fish in the sea”.[16] > > > > G.W.F. Hegel is considered to be one of the early > anti-foundationalistsJohn DeweyMichel FoucaultG.W.F. HegelWilliam > JamesNagarjunaFriedrich NietzscheCharles Sanders PeirceRichard RortyWilfrid > SellarsSeng Ts'anGiambattista VicoLudwig Wittgenstein > > From: [email protected] > > To: [email protected] > > Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 16:11:55 -0600 > > Subject: [MD] Analogies = Turtles? > > > > In the "perceptions" thread, Adrie said to Marsha: > > ...l have to say Dmb was correct that you took an indeterminate knife to > undercut an indeterminate philosophical approach as were the debate > determinism/indeterminism already was clear, not only in Pirsig's > statements, but also in the mainstream today's commons understandings of > the issue. Your mistake was to make the undercut using a double negation, > not so uncommon. > > > > > > > > dmb says: > > Thanks, Adrie. It's good to know that somebody gets the point even if > poor Marsha can't see it. It's sort of interesting to watch her obliviously > repeat this same mistake - this problem of undercutting the MOQ by using > Pirsig's criticisms (of SOM, Platonism, etc.) against the MOQ itself. This > time it's about the turtles. Notice how she equates Pirsig's analogies with > the proverbial turtles, as in the phrase "it's turtles all the way down"? > > > > > > In the thread titled "perceptions," Marsha said: > > "It's analogy all the way down and all the way out, and not a problem if > we cannot always understand each other." > > > > > > > > In the thread titled "turtles, or fun with metaphysics," Marsha said: > > "Being that it's turtles all the way down, it is interesting to see > where one draws the line. .... But in the end the line is drawn like the > spinning seed pods of the maple tree, self-generating whirlybirds drifting > on a lazy, lovely breeze. > > > > > > This looks like another instance of Marsha using philosophical terms and > concepts that she doesn't really understand. In this case, she is > ignorantly and inadvertently using anti-foundationalism against the MOQ, > which is already a form of anti-foundationalism. Once again, this makes > everything too slippery and loose by about 100%. This poisonous double dose > - wherein anit-foundational criticisms are used against the MOQ's analogies > or static patterns - coverts the MOQ from anti-foundationalism into full > blown nihilism and relativism. > > > > The same arguments that I made in criticizing Marsha's use of concept of > "indeterminate" could be used against her use of turtles without hardly any > modification. Like the determinate concepts of truth rejected by the MOQ, > foundational philosophies want to ground their truth in something certain > and eternally fixed. If you look up anti-foundationalism in an > encyclopedia, you find familiar names like William James, John Dewey, > Nietzsche, Nagarjuna and I think it's pretty clear that Pirsig fits right > in with such thinkers. Pragmatism is an anti-foundational theory of truth. > But Marsha wants to use anti-foundational critiques even against Pirsig's > pragmatic truth. Thus Marsha, foolishly mistaking the cure for the disease, > administers the poisonous double-dose. Good thing she's not a doctor, eh? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 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 > > 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 > -- parser 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
