From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 30 2005 - 23:36:47 GMT
Matt and all MOQers:
Matt said:
I just wanted to point out that DMB just quoted the exact passage that shows
Pirsig's ambiguity over the status of "Quality" (and many other pieces of
his philosophy). Pirsig sometimes characterizes it as an empirical
discovery and Scott took issue. DMB quoted this well-known passage...
dmb replies:
The body of your response seems to be aimed to me, but you didn't address
the post to me at the top. Is that supposed to be some kind of snub? Is that
supposed to mean you're not talking to me, and will only address me
indirectly like a sulking spouse? Sheesh. OK, you can play it that way if
you want. If you don't mind looking like a childish and petty grudgeholder
then I won't worry about your inability to make eye contact. (dmb turns
away, turns up his nose, shruggs his sholders, folds his arms in a defensive
gesture and instructs the dog to "tell Matt that I'm not talking to him
either.")
But seriously,...
Matt said:
In ZMM, Pirsig describes his burgeoning philosophy as a "Copernican
revolution" of older, SOMic philosophy. He reverses the order, just as
Copernicus and Kant had done: Quality comes first, then subjects and
objects. None of our "empirical evidence" changes: just the way we look at
it. In ZMM, Pirsig seems to have understood (at least at that point) that
he was rearranging our conceptual equipment and not discovering something
that others had not. ....................................................
dmb says:
You seem to be saying that the MOQ is really just SOM. Nothing new has been
added. Pirsig is just giving us new names for the same old things. I think
that is a mistake that allows you to leave out DQ. And I think its safe to
say that Pirsig's MOQ is can't be understood without it. There is the idea
that the MOQ changes no scientific data, that the dials read the same
regardless of what ideas we use to interpret them. In that sense, none of
our empirical evidence changes. But if the mystical experience is included
as verifiable, empirical evidence, then we are most certainly expanding the
notion of empiricism. I've tried to explain this several times already.
Apparently the dog forget to pass it on.
Matt continued:
......................In Lila, it is much less clear how Pirsig views what
he is doing. After first giving kudos to empiricism and empirical validity,
Pirsig trashes traditional empiricism for being too strict, as hamstringing
valid knowledge with "just" a metaphysical assumption, rather than with
empirical evidence.
dmb replies:
No. Pirsig is only saying what lots of people are saying. The empiricism of
Modernity is a good thing, especially compared to "knowledge" based on
traditon, myth or authority. But that same movement has limits and it has
caused some problems. Its not a matter of reversing himself or applying the
ideas inconsistantly, its just that when we come to certain areas of
inquiry, namely when we get past the reason and the senses, then Modern
empiricism fails us. The MOQ can include this smaller version within its
framework, so that we still give due respect to those lab readings, but
without insisting that experience ends there.
"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called empiricism. It
claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or by
thinking what the senses provide. Most empiricists deny the validity of any
knowledge gained through imagination, authority, tradition, or purely
theoretical reasoning. They regard fields such as art, morality, religion,
and metaphysics as unverifiable. The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this
by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism
are verifiable and that in the past have been excluded for metaphysical
reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the
metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and
objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object
isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It is
just an assumption."
Matt quoted "the most important part":
"[Art, morality, and mysticism] have been excluded because of the
metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and
objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object
isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It
is just an assumption."
Matt said:
This gives the impression that the MoQ is more empirically valid than SOM.
As if the MoQ only hampers itself with empirical evidence, and not
metaphysical assumptions.
dmb says:
The MOQ is more empirically INCLUSIVE, not more valid. As Pirsig puts it,
the difference between SOM and the MOQ is like the difference between a
regular map and a polar projection map. One can be more appropriate than the
other at any given point, but that doesn't mean one is more valid than the
other. They both have their advantages depending on what you're doing.
Matt said:
But if I'm right in this, then I think that very turn to pragmatism in his
hour of need destroys some of the other conceptual equipment he uses along
the way. For instance, take the above passage from Lila. Pirsig
ubiquitizes experience to include everything. Everything is an experience
and in this way everything is empirically verifiable, including art,
morality, and mysticism, which SOM had excluded because of its restricted
sense of experience. But if Pirsig's move is taken to be a "discovery,"
then that means that everything worked like that before, despite the fact
that we didn't know it then. This means that everything was empirically
verifiable before, which means that Pirsig's contrast between metaphysical
assumptions and empirical evidence never could work to contrast SOM with the
MoQ because everything always was empirically verifiable. Whatever this
assumption/evidence distinction is that SOM uses to exclude art, morality,
and mysticism, it must work _within_ and at a different level than the
higher level claim that everything is an experience and therefore
empirically verifiable.
dmb says:
Everything is an experience and so everything is empirically verifiable?
That's WAY too sloppy. I really don't think anyone is being so ham handed as
to suggest that every experience counts as valid empirical evidence. The MOQ
does not relieve us of having to deal with specifics that can be repeated
and checked against more experience and stuff like that. Morality and
mysticism, for example, could both be included, but they would be treated
much differently. And we can't subject a painting to the same tests that we
use to investigate chemicals. The MOQ includes more, without throwing
standards out the window, at least not without a good reason.
Matt concluded with a pungent vegetable:
The Onion the other week, in its What Do You Think? section, asked its
one-liner-heads about Georgia's evolution stickers ("Last week, a U.S.
district judge ordered a Georgia school district to remove stickers reading,
'Evolution is a theory, not a fact' from its textbooks. What do you
think?"). One of the heads responded, "If you don't believe in creationism,
then how do you explain the fact that I do, smart guy?" Which could have
just as easily have read, "If creationism isn't empirically verifiable, then
how do you verify the fact that I believe in it?" There are two different
levels or senses of "empiricial validity" at work here.
dmb replies:
I love The Onion. A recent headline read something like, "ANTI-RACISM
LEGISTATION SPAWS MORE VIRULENT FORMS OF RACISM, SCIENTISTS WARN." But to
address your point, I would simply say that the only thing that is
verifiable about the belief in creationism is that it exists. People believe
it and that's for sure. The validity of the "science" behind creationism is
measured by a completely different standard. This is not understood by The
Onion's fictional idiot. And that's WHY its funny. Sorry, Matt. I'm afraid
the joke is on you.
Thanks,
dmb
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