From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Sun Nov 02 2003 - 17:31:18 GMT
DMB and anyone else interested,
Andy asked McWatt (10/27/2003):
"Well, this may be so, but isn't Pirsig on shaky ground here. You don't give
this much more discussion, but seem content to dismiss Beasley with Pirsigs
brush-off. WHat does Pirsig mean when he says, "You don't lose the value of
quality by treating it as if it had a concrete or material existence."
Quality has a concrete and a material existence? And this is a "fundamental
point of the MOQ?" Uh-oh, I have just missed something here. What is it?
I don't know what quality is, but I don't think it has a "concrete or
material existence." If it does, could someone help me see why this is so."
dmb chimes in(11/01/01):
As real as rocks and trees. This is what I've been trying to get at in the
other thread, where I tried to show those two theories of truth as
incompatible. In these terms, Rorty treats truth as if it only had an
abstract existence, as a property of sentences, as a matter of
intersubjective agreement. Pirsig, on the other hand, treats truth as if it
were as real as...
Andy Responds to DMB (today): Sorry, but Pirsig is talking about quality here and not truth. Two different discussions. I am probably a little dense for not recognizing that quality has a concrete and material existence, but Pirsig never says this about truth. In the Mcwatt thesis, he makes the point that Pirsig subscribes to a pragmatic theory of truth. This is what I meant when I said that you wish to make truth a primary reality with quality. I think this is a mistake.
Andy said earlier:
"From here it seems there is just a small step to saying truth is a propety
of language. I am not disagreeing here I am just noting for others the
"linguistic turn" that Pirsig has taken. To DMB, in particular, it seems
Pirsig notes the imporatance of language to truth."
dmb says:
I think you've misread here. I don't see the small step to Rorty's theory of
truth and I don't think he's talking about the "linguistic turn" here. (I'd
bet a buck that you got this idea from Matt.)
Andy: You owe me a buck. I just happen to be reading a collection of essays edited by Rorty called "The Linguistic Turn." Rorty borrowed this term from Gustav Bergman who coined the phrase in 1964. But I never read any Rorty until I read Matt's confession essay, so we may have to bring in an arbitrator here. One might say that Matt gave me this idea second or thirdhand, but this would not be very honest would it?
DMB: It seems pretty clear to me that he is talking about the way in which ideas (intellectual static quality) are situated in that matter-of-fact evolutionary relationship. He's pointing out the necessary relationship between the social level, where language was born, and the realm of ideas, where we use this inheritance to paint our ideas.
Andy: Yes, and since truth is a property of language (something you agreed a while back is so obvious it is trivial), one, such as Pirsig, can hold a pragmatic theory of truth and still develop a MOQ.
DMB: "It seems that there are lots of specific differences between Rorty and
Pirsig, and I've pressed the distinction between their two theories of truth
because is one of those specific cases that seems to be central to their
overall differences. In the broader view they seem just as incompatable."
Andy: You still have convinced no one here that I am aware of at this site. All of your distinctions have been adequately answered by someone, and not just Matt or I.
DMB: While Rorty's intersubjective agreement might bare some similarities to what Pirsig describes as sanity, that is about as far as it goes. Rorty's truth
is such a flimsy and arbitrary kind of truth, but Pirsig insists there is
something that holds it all together, just as there is something that holds
the glass together and lets you drink. There is a rightness that holds
"sanity" together, and its the same force that holds everything together. He
even asserts that this is the oldest idea known to man. (Mythology expressed
it before there were such things as ideas.)
Andy: Right, I think. Rorty says that intersubjective agreement holds truth together. Pirsig points toward quality holding truth together. But, this quality is not always so easily seen. As in the broad questions like "what makes an idea dangerous?" or "What morals should we all live by in an increasingly global society?" THe "rightness" in answers to questions as these might be what aligns with quality as defined by Pirsig. Or rather, Quality might determine what answer is right. But the "matter of fact evolutionary relationship" between qualtiy and truth will be subverted if we don't allow a democratic process for determining which "truths" in the marketplace of ideas are "better" to live by at each moment in time. This democratic process is what Rorty means when he talks of intersubective agreement. And this is why truth is secondary to quality.
DMB: "He paints a picture of reality such that excellence in human life is
achieved when one is somehow in harmony with this cosmic rightness. The
static patterns are variously mastered, extinquished, or otherwise put to
sleep. When one is no longer fighting against or otherwise tangled up in
these static forms, genuine freedom and creativity may be achived. In
religious circles this might be refered to as "getting right with God" or
"obedience to God's will". Its what Campbell calls "following your bliss".
There's no good reason to avoid this spiritual aspect of Pirsig's work. He's
always been looking for the Buddha in one way or another and so the MOQ is
much, MUCH more comparable to Eastern Philosophy and mysticism than it is to
anything like neo-pragmatism."
Andy: You might be right when talking about quality and the MOQ. But truth is another matter. David M. is correct in calling the MOQ a positive philosophy and Rorty really does not have much to say on this. He says we don't need this. The Onus is on you to persuade us why we do need it. I am not ignoring the spiritual aspect of Pirsigs work any more than I ignore this aspect in my own life. However, this spiritual pursuit described by the Buddha and Campbell is an individual pursuit. Campbell went through some pains to explain that the western world does not necessarily need more of this spirituality. Our individualistic culture has a much greater need for emphasis upon cooperative ideals that are needed to hold a society together. Rorty addresses these needs and doesn't think a metaphysics is going to help us acheive these societal goals. In other words the MOQ is not going to save the world from ourselves, only we can.
DMB: "the MOQ has the unfolding of an evolutionary universe in which
all static forms are tranparent to the divine, are shown to be children of
the creator. A neo-pragmatic atheist and physicalist is just naturally gonna
be lightyears away from all that."
Andy: Again, not going to help us. Whether or not there is a divine creator is irrelevant to the pragmatist. The fact that the MOQist, the Buddhist, the Eastern Mystic, the athiest, the Pragmatist, the neopragmatist, the conservative, the liberal, the fundamentalist Christian, the taoist, the Protestant, the Catholic, the islamist, the physicalist, the pagan, the native American, the communist, and the capitalist are light years apart on agreeing on the nature of the unfolding of an evolutinary universe and on the existence of a divine creator cannot get in the way of all these groups of individuals sitting down together to decide what we are going to do about world peace, global warming, soil depletion, water shortage, the Aids crisis, etc. These questions and the "rightness" of the answers to them can only be determined through intersubjective agreement. The best answers will come from democratic processes, experimentation, and will change through time and place. In this sense truth is not as real as
tree and rocks if we associate it with the answers to these questions.
Regards,
Andy
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