From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Wed May 18 2005 - 18:28:01 BST
Michael you said (of Platt)
To put it mildly, this is a gross distortion.
I say I agree with you.
Welcome to "Plattitudes"
I can only manage smart-ass one-liners in response these days.
More power to your elbow.
Ian
On 5/19/05, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
> >
> >
> > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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> >
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> >
> >
>
>
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