From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 14:59:43 GMT
Matt:
> Platt said:
> Ah, a brave new world where reason is abandoned in favor of the whim of the
> mob. Pray, who will determine the make up of this "Tribunal of People" and
> enforce their adjudication of truth? Oh, excuse me. I forgot. In the brave
> new world there is no such thing as truth. In the brave new world anything
> goes so long as you get enough people to agree with where you want to go.
> Of course, just how many is "enough" is never spelled out. Or is it?
> What I want to note is how "reason" and "truth" don't
> make an appearance as _justifications_ for when something "seems right."
Maybe for you. But not for me. And not for DMB who in his description
of what "seems right" includes "makes sense logically."
> People only have recourse to their own experiences (which include past
> books they've read) when judging other things. This is what Pirsig meant
> by the building up of analogues in ZMM and static patterns in Lila. One of
> the things we inherit when we grow up is a gigantic set of analogues and
> patterns that our culture has accumulated.
Yes. Like mathematics, logic, and "logical consistency."
> When telling other people
> why you rewove your web of beliefs, you justify yourself by making
> reference to other beliefs, other analogues and patterns you use.
Here you introduce the requirement of "other people" to justify your own
truth. This "other people" theme continues throughout your post.
> If, after you've rewoven your web, you justify your new web by only
> referring to your belief "It was demanded by Reason," people will usually
> ask you for a little more.
All you need for truth is to justify it to yourself, like paintings in a
gallery. Here you bring in "other people" again.
> More to point, however, is that if
> someone _only_ refers to the belief "It was demanded by Reason" and refuses
> or cannot explicate it, people will generally not accept it as
> justification.
Other people, once again.
> None of this means you
> can't justify you beliefs by recourse to Reason or God or Truth or Quality.
OK. This is my point.
> The problem is that when you start demanding that other people follow in
> your beliefs you start to sound like Squonk, which is very unpersuasive.
I didn't know that postmodernism was about advertising techniques.
> I
> would say, unlike hearing the voice of God, Truth, Reason, and Quality
> should be explicatable in terms of other beliefs. You should be able to
> explain most "high Quality" feelings by reference to other "high Quality"
> feelings, which pans out to the same thing as justifying a belief by other
> beliefs.
Yes, rule No. 1 in advertising is "strike a responsive chord with your
intended audience."
> The result of all this is that Reason and Truth are utterly useless in
> justifying your beliefs to anybody else.
As many advertisers believe.
> So, pragmatists wonder what use
> they are at all. One answer is that if we make them objects of inquiry, we
> will be able to make more of our beliefs reasonable and truthful (the same
> goes for making Morality or the Good an object of inquiry). The pragmatist
> rejects this formulation, however, on the grounds that we've spent the last
> 2500 years in these lines of inquiry and they've had no noticeable effect
> on our beliefs becoming more reasonable or truthful (or our actions
> becoming more good).
That's just plain wrong. Just look at the scientific advances and
progress towards human dignity and freedom in the last 2500 years.
> And in the end, just as before, the notion of Reason
> becomes superfluous when deciding if we are being reasonable or not. The
> only thing judging us is another person.
These "other people" deciding what you should think is what gets me. It
makes the "Emperor's New Clothes" story the criteria for what's real.
> This is why pragmatists replace
> the Tribunal of Reason with a Tribunal of People. Only other people are
> involved in judging our beliefs and actions.
See what I mean? You, the individual, are incapable of knowing what to
believe and how to act. Only others can tell you, paving the way for Big
Brother and the Brave New World.
Thanks Matt. You've made my case.
Platt
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