From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Aug 30 2003 - 20:37:28 BST
Matt, Paul and all pragmatic MOQers:
Matt said:
I'll rehearse briefly the historical dialectic that led to this. (I
shouldn't have to warn, but I will in case there is any confusion. The
story I'm about to tell is from the pragmatist's eyes...
Now, you'll notice that I've muddied the historical waters by making
Descartes, Locke, Kant, and Hegel talk about language. The reason I did
this was because, in the move against representationalism, it isn't
necessary that we talk about language as opposed to ideas and mind.
Therefore, it is very easy to reconstruct their arguments to make it look
like they were talking about language ...
Paul replied:
You're right, you shouldn't have to warn anyone before saying anything.
My comments about "pragmatist misrepresentation" were a bit harsh given
the length of time you have been around on this forum and the lengths
you have gone to in explaining your approach to Pirsig. I was just being
antagonistic, which doesn't really help debate.
dmb says:
I disagree and wish you had warned me long ago. The failure to make clear
that your story is told through pragmatic eyes has caused me a great deal of
confusion. I mean, it seems clear to me now that this practice constitutes a
kind of backward projection from a 20th century perspective and that this
practice is not without controversy. Some people still believe the best
interpretation accurately reflects the author's intended meaning.
Fortunately, I think something has finally clicked for me. I'm starting to
see what the strange practices and jargon are all about. This things have
unnecessarily locked me out of the conversation for many moons, now I think
I see it and it seems even more clear that JARGON was the only problem....
Matt said:
... If language is a mirror, then getting better knowledge amounts to having
better and better representations of the object of inquiry, to mirror the
world so that eventually our language will be transparent to the world.
This means that the final judge and jury of the truth of a proposition is
Nature, the World, something "out there" that is not us. ...
dmb says:
Now I can see that you've only been talking about subject/object
metaphysics. That's what appearance and reality are. Your discussion of
correspondence theroies are discussions of objectivity, where there can only
be a single explanation of things. Nature and the world is objective
reality, no? The truth tribunal is objectivity. I mean, the pragmatists have
a different set of terms and those terms express a slightly different
characterization of the problem, but surely it is the same problem, no? This
kills me. Its like were all here to discuss Pirsig's work and discuss in
Pirsig's terms, but you insist on using some other currency with ever
mentioning the exchange rate. Maybe I should have noticed this long ago and
its all my fault, but you must admit that I've been asking to drop the
strange jargon for quite a while and its no accident that a wall has come
down the moment you began express the ideas behind them. I'm grateful for
your recent efforts and plan to respond further, but I sure wish you'd done
it long ago. Now we can BEGIN to talk.
Later,
dmb
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