From: Michael Hamilton (thethemichael@gmail.com)
Date: Wed May 18 2005 - 17:31:31 BST
Hi Platt
I can't let this one go:
Pirsig takes a dim view of James' pragmatism in
Lila, pointing out that Nazis were pragmatic. (For similar reasons I
object to postmodernists making pragmatism an object of worship.)
To put it mildly, this is a gross distortion. Pirsig shows total agreement
with James' axiom "Truth is a species of good", and goes on to say how the
MOQ supports James' pragmatism and RESCUES him from the Nazi criticism,
which runs "if the Nazis had won WW2, their beliefs (about race etc) were
pragmatically successful and therefore true". MOQ pragmatism, which Pirsig
claims is what James intended but could not codify, does not validate truth
claims based on social pragmatic success (what others allow you to "get away
with"), but on intellectual pragmatic success (in James' words, that which
"proves itself to be good in the way of belief"). The ambiguity of "good" is
what got James into problems. The MOQ says that the good to which truth is
subordinate is intellectual and Dynamic usefulness, not social usefulness.
Regards,
Mike
On 5/18/05, Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Erin,
>
> > Ok but I still can't see how it can be considered a pragamtic approach.
> You
> > said to ham in one post that assumptions are not empirical. With this
> > expansion of the definition to include everything and its mother I don't
> > see why assumptions are not considered emprical or pragmatic. Because
> that
> > is getting into as you say "who experiences what"
>
> Perhaps you can explain to me why you seem to consider a "pragmatic
> approach" to be desirable. Pirsig takes a dim view of James' pragmatism in
> Lila, pointing out that Nazis were pragmatic. (For similar reasons I
> object to postmodernists making pragmatism an object of worship.)
>
> The problem I see with a "pragmatic" approach is that it begs the
> questions, "Useful in what ways to whom?" followed by a judgment, "Is
> that good?" (Actually the judgment comes prior to determining the action
> and its supposed beneficiaries.)
>
> For example, welfare programs that dole out other people's money were
> hailed as a pragmatic way to "help" the poor, but the results have turned
> out to be anything but helpful, creating a permanent dependent class. The
> successful trial and error experimental methods of science don't transfer
> well up to the level of human societies.
>
> "Pragmatic" social engineering usually ends up making more of mess of
> things than the mess it intended to clean up, not to mention the loss of
> individual liberty such engineering demands, a loss some people consider
> OK so long as their idea of a "greater good" is served -- a road that
> leads to tyranny.
>
> As to your question about assumptions, they are indeed empirical if you
> buy the MOQ view that ideas are experience like everything else. By
> contrast, in the S/O worldview the same assumptions are not empirical
> because they are not perceptible to the physical senses. It was in this
> latter SOM, scientific context that I said "assumptions are nonempirical."
>
> Platt
>
>
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