ists in the Jamews-DeweyI appreciate you taking the time to try and correct my fallacies, Dr. Ant, I may be off base, but I'd like some more clarification. For instance,
On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 6:16 PM, Ant McWatt <[email protected]> wrote: > > John Carl misleadingly (as usual) stated: > > > You see (Dynamic) Quality isn't an ideal for Pirsig; it's undefinable, > immediate experience and is therefore logically prior to anything else > (including ideals) in the empirical train leading from immediate experience > to concepts. > Jc: This "empirical train" you speak of, the one leading from immediate experience to concepts, does it function without logic or causality? Because when I think of trains I think of tracks and it seems to me that the tracking of our empirical "facts" is preconceptualized by the cultural conceptions that are already present. It seems to me that all you've done here, is toss a few pet vocabulary terms at the problem of immediacy and pronounced it solved! Who, outside of a cultish following, is this supposed to convince? Ant: > Again, you're just trying to shoehorn the MOQ into your pet SOM way of > thinking. Jc: In a sense, you're correct because interpreting the MoQ to others does involve translating terms, but you're as wrong about SOM being "my" pet as you are about the scope and definition of Idealism. Ant: > That's like trying to squeeze the average size polar bear into the average > size penguin. It ain't going to work without causing one hell of a bloody > metaphysical mess! > > Are you on any other philosophy discussion groups, by the way John? If > so, I'd be interested in joining one or two of them. > > Jc: Alas, no. And why does your offer sound vaguely threatening to my ears? The only other forum I am part of is LS, which has gone pretty quiet with the passing of Bodvar. And no, I'm not positive he's dead, but if he doesn't communicate anymore it comes down to the same thing, doesn't it? I used to be susceptible to the bullying by the professional philosopher, but then I found a professional philosopher on my side and it's not so easy to push me around anymore. "One will not be able to keep a philosophy in play for very long without learning to work with ideals, and that requires a mastery of logic and metaphysics. In short, pragmatists in the James-Dewey temper will have to learn how to do difficult philosophy, something they hav e successfully avoided doing for about three generations, through disinclination, dullness of mind, and uniformed superstiions about the rold of reason in philosophy. The inheritors of the James and Dewey temper, however, are such as to believe that all metaphysics is is bad metaphysics-- and here we have nice examples among them of the methods of tenacity, authority and the a priori method, which is what they have done in fixing their beliefs about the matter. Hence, they neither read nor understand Royce, nor Whitehead, nor anyone else who is difficult to understand, and they often dislike Perice and do not understand him, even though they have developed a conscience about forcing themselves to read him, once." ibid, page 120 I could "read" you more, but I think you get the gist. Rather than dwell on criticism, let me just read you something positive about ideals - "Philosophical knowledge can contribute to the community in the form of clear and important words and actions that demonstrate the reality of ideals as future possibilities for our common life, which is another word for "teaching" in the broadest sense. This is a kind of "possibilist" teleology, which is to say it is not the ontological assertion of antecedently existing "fixed ends" but the recognition and excellent handling of the reality of ideals as future possibilities--without which we simply cannot plan our lives. " If one cannot discuss the reality of ideals, then how can one discuss the reality of Value? Thanks for your time, John 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
