From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Wed Jan 28 2004 - 09:40:09 GMT
Matt
Paul previously said:
Yes, "little more than" is a conclusion arrived at when the only
alternative to objective is subjective. When value enters the picture as
a third category, there is a further reason to accept realism - it's the
*best* intellectual pattern for investigating nature. From this starting
point we can say that intersubjective agreement is created by Quality
and objectivity is then created by intersubjective agreement. I think
this is an important MOQ contribution to pragmatism. Matt, I'm sure,
doesn't think it necessary and puts it down to common sense.
Matt said:
I'm not sure what the "common sense" bit means in your ascription of my
views
Paul:
In previous discussions I asked how a pragmatist comes to have beliefs
about a physical world that collectively become intersubjective
agreement. You explained that it was the "believed-in" physical reality
that causes a pragmatist to hold such beliefs. When I pointed out the
circularity of this you said pragmatism is not concerned with
metaphysical explanations and is just supposed to be facile common sense
- e.g. it was *obviously* a tiger that caused me to believe in a tiger.
Pragmatism offers no general explanation for the arrival at this common
sense, except the linear historical progression of ideas. I think the
MOQ does.
Matt said:
....but I think that saying that there are three categories, objective,
subjective, and value, misses the point of what Pirsig was doing.
Paul:
I was taking the pragmatist position as stated by David - objectivity is
little more than intersubjectivity - and expanding it by adding value,
which is neither subjective nor objective. (To be clear, I'm using
subjective and objective in an ontological sense here). This is the
"trinity" stage Phaedrus reaches in ZMM. The MOQ then describes this
value as unpatterned value (Dynamic Quality) and redescribes subjective
and objective as patterned value (static quality).
Matt said:
Pirsig posited value behind objective and subjective. I take this to
mean that he's dissolving the contrast between them.
Paul:
Epistemologically, yes, it is dissolved into high and low quality social
and intellectual patterns. Ontologically, the contrast remains within
static quality in an evolutionary relationship.
Matt said:
This, I think, is his move towards intersubjective agreement. Value, as
the dissolving category (if you will), is a continuum of intersubjective
agreement.
Paul:
Again I think intersubjective agreement, in the MOQ, translates into
varying degrees of social and intellectual quality.
Matt said:
Put this way, you are moreorless right, "intersubjective agreement is
created by Quality and objectivity is then created by intersubjective
agreement." Pragmatists just don't take the "objectivity" to mean
anything more than "lots of intersubjective agreement." As long as we
have Quality in place, there isn't really a good line to be drawn
between merely intersubjective and objective.
Paul:
You are talking about subjective and objective in an epistemological*
sense. In that sense I think the MOQ agrees - the difference is between
high and low quality intellectual patterns. In an ontological sense, the
MOQ draws a line between inorganic-biological and social-intellectual
patterns without awarding the title of Reality exclusively to either
side of the line.
*Correct me if I'm wrong but, because you don't do metaphysics, in
neo-pragmatism ontology is collapsed into epistemology and reduced to
the continuum of more or less useful knowledge? The MOQ grounds both
ontology and epistemology in value. I think this is why we sometimes
talk past each other a little.
Regards
Paul
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