From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 13 2005 - 18:56:57 GMT
Scott and all:
Scott said to dmb:
I note that you have chosen to overlook the direct quote from Wilber in
which he say he is restricting his use of empirical "to avoid ambiguities".
Here is where he says that [Eye to Eye, p. 43]
dmb replies:
Actually, I don't have Eye to Eye and had intended to ask you for some
context. In fact, I was going to present a challenge and ask for the whole
paragraph in which the quote appears as well as the whole paragraph before
and after that one. I was going to bet you big bucks that Wilber was not
saying what you suggest at all and that it would only take three paragraphs
to expose yet another one of your misinterpretations. Turns out that I
didn't have to ask and and it only took two paragraphs. Its clear to me that
Wilber is talking about the confusion that results when broader empiricists
talk to to the narrow ones and the care that should be taken. We don't want
the guys in the lab coats to think we mean that we LITERALLY saw God with
our eyes. A guy could get locked up or laughed out of a career for such
things. But in the very same breath he is still saying that limiting
"experience to sensory-empiric modes" is a "reductionist fallacy" and that
this reduction was a "great and enduring crime". Its clear to me that Wilber
is simply telling us how to talk with these reductionist criminals. If the
broader empiricist are operating with the 3 eyes of epistemological
pluralism but they are talking to those who insist there is only one eye,
its gonna confuse them. That's what he means in saying the sensory
empiricists are committing a "category error"; its a confusion about which
eye is appropriate. He's not saying we should be joining them in their
narrowness, only how to speak to it. (The full quotes are repeated at the
bottom of this post.)
Scott said:
So. Don't you think that, at least when he wrote this, Wilber would have
said that Pirsig, by his expansion of the word "empirical" should be
included among those who "completely confound matters"?
dmb replies:
No. That's another thing. Wilber remarks are aimed at "the new humanists and
transpersonal psychologists" who are talking to mainstream scientists.
Pirsig is doing metaphysics and is quite explicit and detailed about
clearing up these matters. He is also a critic of the narrow version of
empiricism, which is all tangled up in SOM, and represents one of its main
flaws. I think Pirsig should be counted among those who are helping here.
(The idea of levels of reality goes along with epistemological pluralism and
both are features of the perennial philosophy.) In short, Pirsig does not
commit the kind of "category errors" or "reductionists fallacies" that
Wilber is complaining about here, but you certainly are.
Scott said:
Given these contrary quotes, I think we will have to say that Wilber is the
confused guy, not me.
dmb replies:
You express a very high level of certainty and a very high level of
wrongness at the same time. The effect of this juxtaposition is humorous
enough that I caught myself laughing out loud as I read it. Its not exactly
a knee-slapper or a belly-laugher, but I distinctly heard a snort and a
chuckle.
Scott said:
Again (and how many times do I have to say this), I am not denying that we
learn from other ways than the senses. I ACCEPT what you call
epistemological pluralism. I REJECT expanding the word "empirical" to the
mental-phenomenological and the transcendental, for the same reason that
Wilber gave in Eye to Eye.
dmb replies:
Again with the snort and the chuckle. I'm reporting my spontaneous and
immediate reaction here, I swear. Here you have rejected AND accepted the
same thing at the same time. This is how confused you are, dude.
Epistemological pluralism IS BY DEFINITION the expansion of the meaning of
the word empirical. (Actually, its not so much an expansion as it is a
restoration of what Modernity had collapsed.) Where did you learn how to
read, Scott? You really should get yourself a lawyer and sue those bastards.
They done you wrong. ;-) But seriously, you have contradicted yourself
again, this time within a single paragraph. Don't know if I can take much
more of this kind of "fun".
Thanks,
dmb
I'm done, but here's a little context for the Wilber quote in question...
"Let me repeat that one of the reasons that ambiguity can and does occur is
that "experience" can be used in the broad sense ("direct awareness"), but
then also given a common and much narrower meaning: *sensory* perceptions.
By consciously or unconciously juxtaposing those meanings, the modern-day
empiricist can ridicule the idea of knowledge outside experience (so far, so
good), but then *limit* experience to the sensory-empiric modes
(reductionistic fallacy, category error, etc.). And so to completely
confound matters, many of the new humanistic and transpersonal
psychologists, working mostly with intelligibilia and transcendentalia, and
correctly realizing that their data is indeed experiential (in the broad
sense), and wishing equal recognition as "real sciences", simply *call*
their endeavors and their data "empirical", only to find that strict
empirical scientists simply reject their results, sometimes with undisguised
mocking."
"To avoid these ambiguities, I will restrict the term "empirical" to its
original meaning: knowledge grounded in sensory experience (sensibilia). I
suggest humanistic and transpersonal psychologists do the same. Classical
empiricism was an attempt to reduce all higher knowledge and experience to
sensory knowledge and experience. The emphasis on direct experience (in the
broad sense) was the great and enduring contribution of the empiricists; the
reduction of experience to sensory experience was their great and enduring
crime." Ken Wilber
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