From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 20 2005 - 18:10:17 GMT
Matt and all MOQers:
Matt Kundert said:
...despite the fact that I also consider the twin cardiac
chambers of modern philosophy to be epistemology and ontology (or
metaphysics), which is why they should be shunned, I also don't participate
much in the political discussions that go on around here. Just doesn't
interest me that much. Pragmatists suggest that we move on to more fruitful
discussions, but part of our evangelical mission is trying to convince the
metaphysicians that the jig is up, modern philosophy is over.
dmb says:
There are two points I'd like to make here. The first one is that the
pragmatist attack on epistemology, ontology (metaphysics) can't be rightly
applied to the MOQ. As I understand it, the futility of metaphysics is
rightly identified by postmodernism, but that futility is a result of SOM.
In the same way that it is not correct to treat the MOQ as subscribing to
the correspondence theory of truth, to materialism and other such features
of the Modern world view, it is simply incorrect to view the MOQ as equally
trapped in that perspective. As I understand it, you end up treating the MOQ
as if it did not already abandon the source of the trouble, you end up
treating as if it held on to certain SOM assumptions. I thnik that the jig
is up only insofar as we fail to escape SOM, not metaphysics per se. I
mean, as Ken Wilber explains it metaphysics had come to mean "assertions
without evidence". That jig is up too. But the MOQ is empirical from head to
toe. It asserts nothing without evidence. But treated the MOQ as if it were
that kind of metaphysics is a case of hanging the wrong man. Pirsig says
that when DQ is indentified with mysticism it produces an avalanche of
information as to what DQ is. I would add that when a proper understanding
of DQ is removed from the MOQ it produces an avalanche of misinterpretation.
(Such as your interpretation of the primary empirical experience as the
starting point of a subjective, sensory experience, a.k.a. SOM)
The second point goes to your lack of interest in politics and the assertion
that we should move on to more fruit-filled discussions. Nearly a year ago
Richard Rorty wrote an article for The Nation, my favorite magazine. (If the
politics were taken out, each issue would be reduced to about three pages.)
In it he tries to defend his pragmatism against charges that it represents a
destructive and dangerous nihilism. I think he fails to even understand what
his critics are saying, but you can judge for yourself. (It can be found in
the May 27th, 2004 issue if you're interested.) In any case, Rorty openly
admits that his intellectual ancestors include Derrida and Foucault who, as
students, "assimilated and accetped Martin Heidegger's story about how
Western philosophy began with Plato and ended with Nietzsche. They were
convinced by Heidegger's books that we should stop trying to 'ground'
Western instituions in something august and ahistorical. They regretted both
the 'superman' passages in Nietzsche - the ones that the Nazis made such
good use of - and Heidegger's admiration for Hitler. But these regrets did
not diminish their admiration for the two men's philosophical achievements."
It easy to imagine that Pirsig had this kind of problem in mind even when he
criticized James' pragmatism. You may recall that Pirsig's problem with it
is that it reduces "what works" to what works socially. And more pointedly,
that is does not prevent the Nazis from claiming that Nazism works for
Nazis. In other words, without any rational ethical basis that would prevent
such a thing pragmatism is a moral nightmare. These anti-foundationalist
views lead to the kind of intellectual paralysis Pirsig describes so well in
Lila. You know, no way to tell the saints from the degenerates and all that.
I know it'll be hard to believe and accept because you've been obsessed with
Pirsig for so long and worked so hard and been such a honest and careful
professional througout your golden career, but I really think you've got
some major league misconceptions about the MOQ.
Let the shrugging and shunning begin,
dmb
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