From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2003 - 23:24:11 BST
Johnny,
Johnny asked:
Is there a difference between "intersubjective agreement" and the mythos?
Matt:
I agree with Bo and Paul, there is no difference between the mythos and intersubjective agreement, or rather, the mythos, or our accumulated static patterns, or our accumulated analogues on analogues (depending on which Pirsigian phrase you want) are generated by intersubjective agreement, which, you'll remember, I interpret Pirsig to mean by "Quality is socially approved evaluations" which is why I can only agree when Paul says that the mythos comes from Quality. Quality is an historical thing, a process that unfolds in history. The mythos is something we inheirit from our past.
Side note to Bo and Paul: I think Paul is basically right with his desciption of the difference between intersubjective and subjective. In common parlance, the epithet "subjective" is thrown at people when they think the other person has an opinion that can't be agreed to under any established criteria. Things are considered objective if there are established critieria in which to reach consensus.
Johnny said:
Intersubjective agreement can be a priori, right? It doesn't have to be sought while seeking truth, rather, it is forced upon us before we even realize that we have considered it. It sure is assy9 to think that we don't already know what we agree about. We agree about so much - water flowing downhill, rocks being rocks, tigers being tigers. You don't have to ask about it all the time.
Matt:
I think you've pretty much summed up why I think Platt's group-truth-gotta'-walk-over-to-your-neighbor's-house-to-find-out-if-there's-a-tiger-about-to-eat-you criticism is too facile and missing the point. I typically reserve "a priori" for instances of things you know before birth (a la the empiricist/rationalist controversy), but if you mean "a priori" as in pre-reflective, as when you say, "it is forced upon us before we even realize that we have considered it," then yeah. We are socialized into our mythos, and it is only after we are engaged in the mythos can we break out of it in a useful manner (as opposed to just being insane, though insanity could prove to be useful to; however, I would bet on the horse that was socialized first).
And, for the record, as you might guess, I'm with Johnny when he says, "The rock won't appear unless the idea is there, but the idea won't happen without a reason, a need for a rock being there." I think the idea Johnny's on after is the same as me saying that our linguistic practices are too bound up with our experiences to unwind them.
Matt
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