Re: MD Pure experience and the Kantian problematic

From: Erin (macavity11@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Feb 12 2005 - 20:04:44 GMT

  • Next message: David Buchanan: "RE: MD Is the MoQ still in the Kantosphere?"

    LOL
    damned if you don't define something damned if you do
    (or should I say confuse)

    Erin

    Ron Winchester <phaedruswolff@hotmail.com> wrote:
    Scott:
    I like this a lot. I think there is one additional distinction to make,
    though, within the category "metaphysics". One might call it "finalizing" or
    "asymptotic" metaphysics versus (as Whitehead describes his) "speculative"
    metaphysics.

    Hi Scott,

    I don't like your use of the word metaphysics here. If we look at
    metaphysics through all these meanings, does it not tend to confuse?

    Ron

    >From: "Scott Roberts"
    >Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
    >To:
    >Subject: Re: MD Pure experience and the Kantian problematic
    >Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 23:00:10 -0700
    >
    >Matt,
    >
    >Matt said:
    >First some things about metaphilosophy, philosophy, and metaphysics.
    > Here's how I would put these three
    >different areas:
    >
    >1) Metaphilosophy: What way of life are we going to follow?
    >
    >2) Philosophy: How do things, in the broadest sense of the term, hang
    >together, in the broadest sense of the term?
    >
    >3) Metaphysics: How do things _really_ hang together?
    >
    >The first is taken from your use of Pierre Hadot (whose book I've just
    >started reading), which is a use the rhymes very well with Wittgenstein.
    >Each form of life uses certain vocabularies with which they make sense of
    >the world. So while doing philosophy (stolen from Wilfrid Sellars), we try
    >and develop a vocabulary with which we try and get the rest of our
    >vocabularies (scientific, moral, religious, literary, political, etc.) to
    >hang together. Doing metaphilosophy involves a conversation about which
    >form of life is better, which kind of philosophical vocabulary we should be
    >using to get our other vocabularies to hang together. One way of
    >describing
    >metaphysics, then, is as a particular kind of philosophical vocabulary, a
    >kind of philosophy that tries to have metaphilosophical consequences. By
    >bit by bit hammering down how things really hang together, the choice of
    >what form of life we are going to be is taken away from us, determined
    >instead by something other than us (i.e. Reality).
    >
    >Scott:
    >I like this a lot. I think there is one additional distinction to make,
    >though, within the category "metaphysics". One might call it "finalizing"
    >or
    >"asymptotic" metaphysics versus (as Whitehead describes his) "speculative"
    >metaphysics. Finalizing metaphysics matches your definition, but
    >speculative
    >metaphysics doesn't quite. In the latter there is an acknowledgment that
    >the
    >hammering cannot be finally carried through, and that it is only good until
    >the next Copernican revolution or whatever. It recognizes that it is
    >working
    >within some contingent perspective. (Modern, non-fundamentalist theology is
    >generally speculative, by the way -- for a theologian, the theology is not
    >likely to determine the choice of form of life. What will is grace, so the
    >best that theology can do is make one more open to grace, using the
    >vocabulary of the present time. So it is metaphysical, in that it it does
    >try to have metaphilosophical consequences that are determined by Reality,
    >but it acknowledges its limitations.) The MOQ would be speculative, as must
    >any that posits an ineffable. Mine -- assuming it is a metaphysics (which I
    >think it is -- see below) is more finalizing, but with a twist. (N.b., I do
    >not "posit" an ineffable, as that is logocentric. This may be casuistry,
    >though.)
    >
    >Matt said:
    >In the sense of these terms, most propounded philosophies by philosophers
    >are a tangle of meta- and philosophical theses, though most philosophers in
    >the past (and present for that matter) take their meta- theses for granted
    >and disentangling them is a bit of a chore. What Rorty shunts under the
    >name "pragmatism" is mostly just metaphilosophical theses, though from time
    >to time he'll be inconsistent (in the sense that pragmatism is _only_ the
    >name for a metaphilosophical stance, which historically it hasn't only
    >been)
    >and attribute a philosophical thesis to pragmatism. (I think this may be
    >what's happening with materialism.) But with the above distinctions in
    >hand, it is fairly easy to distinguish Rorty's meta- from philosophical
    >theses (with the realization, then, that he spends most of his time doing
    >metaphilosophy).
    >
    >Scott:
    >Makes sense.
    >
    >Matt said:
    >So: I see your philosophy as retaining a mix of that bad, bad metaphysics,
    >as when you say, "the One, True religion . is something that should be a
    >goal to work out publicly, as a matter of intellectual responsibility."
    >This makes it seem as though the One, True Religion is out there waiting
    >for
    >us to discover it. That propositions that make up this Religion will force
    >themselves on us-deciding for us what form of life we are going to be.
    >
    >Scott:
    >Mostly correct (i.e., yes, I am doing bad, bad metaphysics, but I will be
    >arguing why this is not so bad). However, I think it unlikely that this
    >Religion will be made up of propositional truth claims. One might quote
    >Nagarjuna: "For those who make a view out of emptiness there is no hope".
    >Assuming this Religion shakes out in this sort of direction, it will not be
    >captured in a philosophical text, but philosophical texts can be skillful
    >means for understanding why Nagarjuna said this.
    >
    >Matt said:
    > The reason I think your philosophy is only slightly tainted with this
    >metaphysical impulse is because, for the most part, you refrain from
    >metaphysical addendums to philosophical theses (after sorting out the
    >theses
    >into the appropriate piles; sometimes you say "metaphysics" where I would
    >replace it with "philosophy." For instance, "metaphysics . has to learn to
    >stop thinking of itself as answering "what is X" type questions, and
    >replace
    >them with "what is a more useful vocabulary for dealing with 'things in
    >general.'" I would take this to be urging us to stop metaphysics and stick
    >to philosophy.).
    >
    >Scott:
    >I see it as metaphysics that does without truth by correspondence. It
    >remains to be seen whether there can be such a metaphysics.
    >
    >Matt said:
    > And the crack in those addendums, the spill of pragmatist
    >acid (as I see it), is in the above claim I quoted from you. The part that
    >the ellipsis is muffling is "whatever it turns out to be." The One, True
    >Religion is whatever it turns out to be. In my last post I commented on
    >the
    >Peircian quality of this claim. What pragmatists like Rorty can't
    >understand is how positing the existence of the language Peircish, that
    >perfect language we will all be speaking at the end of inquiry, or the
    >OneTrueReligion religion, which we will all be participating and believing
    >in at the end of inquiry, makes any difference at all to our inquiries into
    >better languages and better religion. As long as we have the Miltonian
    >claim that truth will win out in "free and open encounters" and Peirce's
    >strictures against blocking the road of inquiry, we need no such posits.
    >The reason "truth will win out" doesn't look like a Peircian posit is
    >because people like Rorty and I can't ever imagine inquiry or philosophy or
    >cultural evolution ever stoping. This is why Rorty has started calling
    >pragmatism "antiauthoritarianism." The only thing that can stop the
    >conversation is other people, not some non-human authority like Reality or
    >Truth or God. And without political fiat, how are we ever going to get
    >people to stop bickering and disagreeing? And why would we want to? Some
    >of the most interesting things come out of disagreement.
    >
    >Just keep the conversation going.
    >
    >Scott:
    >As I see it, the reason that you and Rorty cannot imagine inquiry not
    >stopping is that you are Darwinians. I can imagine the inquiry stopping
    >because I include in my metaphysics that we are all ignorant, deluded
    >sinners, but that redemption (Awakening) is a-coming. (What happens then I
    >haven't a clue.) The Darwinism is a consequence of that ignorance.
    >
    >
    >Scott said:
    >My different take is that the bullcrap arises because of the Cartesian
    >separation of nature from mind. So as I see it, the Dennett's of the world
    >accepted that separation, saw the problems that creates with respect to
    >mind
    >(and therefore consciousness), and decided to do away with mind. Berkeley
    >took the opposite tack. My response is to go back to the thought before the
    >separation took place and reformulate it in a modern vocabulary.
    >
    >Matt said:
    >I think this is a mistake. I don't think we should take Dennett as
    >proposing that we do away with mind (whatever Dennett thinks of himself;
    >even if he has rid himself of reductionism (which I think he has), he still
    >does have a residual taint of scientism). Dennett, Davidson, and Rorty are
    >concerned with eliminating the separation between nature and mind, same as
    >you. You are right, Berkeley took one direction and the materialists took
    >another. But part of the see-saw the pragmatists are trying to hop off of
    >is just this choice: materialist or idealist? When we eliminate this
    >separation between nature and mind, though, we have some loose ends to wrap
    >up, some new vocabularies to create to make things hang together. One
    >thing
    >the separation between mind and nature allowed was the easy claim that
    >science was about nature, but not about minds (or God), thus making room
    >for
    >our moral discourse and free will. So one thing pragmatists have to
    >account
    >for, after destroying the separation between nature and mind, is what
    >science does, how the scientific vocabulary hangs together with our other
    >vocabularies (like psychological and religious). One way Dennett does this
    >is by distinguishing between different levels of looking at things:
    >physical, design, or intentional. These different levels each have there
    >own vocabulary, vocabularies that are inappropriate at the other levels.
    >
    >Scott:
    >To explain myself I need to invoke Barfield's thesis, that it wasn't
    >Descartes and Bacon who invented the split between mind and nature. Rather,
    >the texture of consciousness changed from where there was no such split, to
    >where there is (this change taking place gradually over the 2000 years
    >prior
    >to Descartes' time). The split at the beginning (in the Axial Age) meant
    >the
    >beginning of intellect, as making possible reflection on things, but the
    >thinking was thought of as participation with the things. One knew about X
    >because one's concepts about X were also the concepts about which X thought
    >itself into existence (or which God used to think X into existence). By the
    >time of Descartes, though, any sense of a Geist in nature had gone away, so
    >it was then possible for philosophy to say there is mind and there is
    >nature, and they are completely distinct. With that arose the
    >epistemological problem of how the mind could know about nature.
    >
    >What Dennett -- and most everybody -- assumes is that what the Greeks
    >perceived and what we do are basically the same, but we have developed a
    >better vocabulary for dealing with what we perceive (science). What
    >Barfield
    >is saying is that we were only able to develop that vocabulary when we did
    >because only by that time was nature perceivable as lacking the Geistliche.
    >That scientific vocabulary is very useful, of course, but with the loss of
    >the vocabulary of participation it also lets in certain metaphysical
    >mistakes, mainly Darwinism. Darwinism assumes a long stretch of time in
    >which there was nothing to which our mental vocabulary applies. The
    >ancients
    >could not have thought this because they did not *perceive* a nature to
    >which the mental vocabulary did *not* apply.
    >
    >What this implies is that Dennett's philosophy is based on accepting the
    >Cartesian view of nature, while rejecting Descartes' view of mind as an
    >independently existing substance. To do the latter, he has substituted
    >"different levels of looking at things" for mental substance. This gets
    >over
    >the epistemological problem of dualism, but creates a new problem: how did
    >these vocabularies, or any, come about?
    >
    >Scott said:
    >As I said in the other post, I think Rorty is arguing as a materialist and
    >not a pragmatist when he says one should just stop having such intuitions.
    >
    >Matt said:
    >With the above distinctions between meta-, philosophy, and metaphysics in
    >mind, I think
    >I can say that Rorty is arguing from a metaphilosophical standpoint because
    >he is saying that we shouldn't be the form of life that thinks there is
    >something more to physical pain than brain-states (or at the very least, we
    >should repress the idea that pain tells us something about how the world
    >really is). When you start talking about which intutions we should save
    >and
    >which ones we should repress, I think that means you are at the
    >metaphilosophical level because our intutions are what make us a particular
    >form of life.
    >
    >Scott:
    >As always, I have difficulty seeing how this isn't an argument between two
    >metaphysical positions. I argue that reflection on physical pain (or any
    >percept) does tell us something about reality that reflection on
    >brain-states does not, namely, that consciousness transcends time, and so
    >time isn't fundamental. This is a metaphysical claim, so it seems that if I
    >am urged not to see something more in pain than brain-states, that must be
    >because one holds a different metaphysical position, one that says "there
    >once were no beings who could have had any use for an intentional
    >vocabulary, since there were no beings who had language."
    >
    >Scott said:
    >I think that Sam is right that until recently mysticism gains
    >intelligibility only within a tradition, but that now things are, or are
    >becoming different. ...
    >
    >Matt:
    >The first comment I want to make is that I'm not sure that Sam is claiming
    >that _until recently_ mysticism only gained intelligibility within a
    >tradition. If I understand Sam correctly, he is saying that mysticism
    >_only_ gains intelligibility within a tradition, but this is only because
    >tradition is not opposed to reason, as the Enlightenment taught us to do.
    >
    >Scott:
    >I see that I goofed in what I said. It should have been "I think that,
    >historically, Sam is right that mysticism gains intelligibility only within
    >a tradition, but I think that now things are, or are becoming different."
    >
    >Matt said:
    >In the above, you use such an opposition to enunciate the changes that have
    >undertook religious mysticism, but I think you need to look for a new
    >distinction to formulate the changes because what Wittgenstein, Gadamer,
    >and
    >Rorty (and almost every other post-modernist) have taught us is that
    >_everything_ is embedded in a tradition, a social practice, a language
    >game,
    >which is something I think you follow in by saying all experience is
    >semiotic. Reason isn't a faculty that swings free of a tradition.
    >Reasonableness arises within a tradition of discourse when certain criteria
    >have been met, criteria determined by each particular language game.
    >
    >Scott:
    >But is this still true now that we are aware of the myriad ways reason has
    >been held captive by a tradition? The reason I have been arguing that
    >Intellect (which I am using interchangeably with Reason) should be treated
    >as being another name for Emptiness is that intellect can both work within
    >a
    >language game and it can deconstruct them and build new ones. For sure, in
    >saying this I am still bound by a great deal of tradition, if for no other
    >reason that I am doing it in English. But that doesn't prevent me from
    >pointing to Emptiness, which is saying that every thing in every language
    >game is empty. Since 'Emptiness' is a word in the mystical language game,
    >it
    >too is empty. On the other hand, it is ridiculous to say that this computer
    >I am typing on doesn't exist, or that I can't know anything, or that
    >everything is meaningless. That is nihilism. To resolve these two one has
    >recourse to the logic of contradictory identity -- which doesn't resolve
    >it,
    >but keeps us in the Middle Way, in a vocabulary that is neither logocentric
    >nor nihilistic. Emptiness is not other than language games, language games
    >are not other than Emptiness. So the claim I am making is that the language
    >game of pragmatism/Wittgenstein/Gadamer, when augmented with the logic of
    >contradictory identity, and when the language of Darwinism is overcome, is,
    >or at least has potential to be, a final vocabulary. In any case, why I see
    >it as escaping the "no metaphysics" metaphilosophical maxim of pragmatism,
    >and Sam's view that all mysticism is within a tradition, is that I see no
    >way that the culture can move past this point of pointing out that
    >"everything is embedded in a tradition, etc." It can, of course, regress.
    >
    >The big question in my mind is, should I be calling this metaphysics? I
    >think it is, in part because it requires changes in what I think of as the
    >unstated metaphysical view of contemporary intellectual society, which is
    >basically Darwinian and nominalistic. More importantly, though, if one
    >starts to say that everything "really is" a token in a language game (which
    >implies that it manifests a type, i.e., universals are as necessary as
    >particulars) then the logic of Nagarjuna starts to become more accessible.
    >
    >Matt asked:
    >And second, your "generic mysticism" ("language game of permanent
    >self-critique") looks an awful lot like Rorty's ironist. Is there a
    >difference?
    >
    >Scott:
    >The difference is that I see this irony as soteriological. One does this,
    >that is, adopts this a way of life, to remove obstacles to Awakening.
    >
    >- Scott

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