From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Aug 17 2003 - 22:47:22 BST
Scott, Matt and all:
Scott said to Matt:
I too am suspicious of the question "what is real". But I am also suspicious
of Dewey's, Rorty's, and Davidson's motives (James I think escapes this
criticism). That is, these guys are materialists, and *therefore* reject
appearance/reality distinctions and metaphysics, since materialism is
basically the position that only appearances are real. (Of course, as
pragmatists, they wouldn't say that, but that does seem to underlie their
thinking.)
dmb says:
Right. It seems that denying that there is a distinction between appearance
and reality is effectively an assertion that appearance IS reality, that
they are indistinguishable. Or, to be more generous, it asserts that
appearance is all we have and that is as close to reality as we will ever
get. This is not very difficult to comprehend or accept. What I don't
understand is how this leads us to the conclusion that philosophy and
metaphysics is dead. And since its pretty clear that scientific materialism
is assumed by Rorty and friends, it just seems that all these guys have
really done is abandon the most interesting questions in favor of physics
and such. If that's not SOM, nothing is.
Scott said:
As I've said before, the "2000 years with nothing to show" argument doesn't
wash. The "answer" (mysticism, to be brief) has been around all that time
(and is a part of the philosophical tradition, though in the West, not
dominant), but most people can't hear it, or aren't ready for it. And of
course a materialist rejects this answer for dogmatic reasons.
dmb says:
Yep. And more than that, the fact that mysticism is almost completely off
the philosophical radar screen has lead to some rather profound
misunderstandings of what Plato was talking about in the first place. (Those
interested in more detail should know that Sam and I explored this problem
in a thread called "systemaic about the sophists".) It seems to me that he
was trying to get at the nature of mysticism, but SOM's rejection of
mysticism has lead the pragmatists and many others to a profound
misunderstanding of what he was up to. Pirsig's re-evaluation of Plato in
ZAMM spells it out pretty clearly, I think, and I tried to import the
relevant passages in those exchanges with Sam. I would beg Matt to read
them.
Scott thinks Matt provided a misrepresentation:
" Plato's answer was that all of reality we experience via our senses _is_ a
dream, a massive hallucination, but we do have the tools to reach reality,
so don't worry too much. Just wait for the smart people to tell you what
reality is. "
dmb says:
And so do I. Reality is a dream and a hallucination? Its true that mystics,
East and West, both assert that ordinary experience is an illusion, we have
to be careful about confusing that claim with dreams and hallucinations.
Mysticism asserts that beyond the appearance of the many forms of the world
there is an underlying unity or One. But this conclusion is not arrived at
by any kind of scientific, philosophical or systemic thoughts process. The
mystics say that is precisely the origin of the illusion. Instead, the
underlying unity of reality is percieve as a direct experience. And so it is
with Pirsig's MOQ. Mystical experiences are not excluded from his
intellectual descriptions, but he goes to great lengths in explaning why the
nature of such experiences is completely different than intellectual
descriptions of it. The first division, static and dynamic, draws a big fat
line between the two, but the pragmatists like Matt erase that line and
reduce DQ to mere novelty or "a compliment we pay after the fact." That's
not even in the ballpark. Different neigborhood. Different planet.
Tanks.
And guns.
dmb
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