From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 29 2004 - 21:53:41 GMT
Matt and all MOQers:
Matt K wrote:
For the pragmatist, there is no difference between vocabulary and mindset.
When you make a distinction between the two, the spectare of the
correspondence theory of truth arises. AND LATER
...In terms of expression, it would be like trying to find a pair of clear
lenses, a search for the kind of clarity in which your words don't get in
the way of what you are trying to say. For Wittgensteinians, "clear words"
wouldn't express anything, they would be completely empty. It is only
because they are opaque that they can mean anything. Language isn't a
gateway into what we are thinking, in which the clearer the gateway, the
better in which another person can rub elbows with our thoughts. Our
thoughts are our language (this is what is meant by the "linguistic turn")
and what you are rubbing up against is the language we use.
dmb replies:
As I understand it, Pirsig does not go as far as "the pragmatist" in
equating vocabulary with mindset. Pirsig goes along with Wittgenstein in
holding that language precedes thought. We see this idea in Pirsig's
correction of a certain famous frog. "If Descartes had said, 'The 17th
century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am', he would
have been correct." (CH 24) We see this idea expressed in Pirsig's
distinction between the 3rd and 4th levels. We see this, by analogy, in his
description of the role of ritual in our beliefs. "That is, we don't perform
rituals because we believe in God. We believe in God because we perform
religious rituals." (end of CH 30) And so it is with language. We don't
speak because we have thoughts, we have thoughts because we speak. Pirsig
subscribes to this idea too (the linguistic turn), but it would be difficult
to overestimate the difference Pirsig's level's make on the issue of
language. Without the distinction between social and intellectual levels,
"the pragmatist" (Matt and Rorty) can equate language and mindset, but
Pirsig cannot. Where the vocabulists would describe the distinction between
religious conservatives and secular liberals as a difference in
vocabularies, Pirsig would describe it as an evolutionary conflict between
social and intellectual values, putting a great distance between Rorty and
Pirsig.
Matt K wrote:
This is why I think Pirsig's lens analogy is misleading in Lila. Pirsig
says that our static patterns, our personal histories, are like differently
colored lens with which we perceive the world. ..We all agree with Clifford
Geertz that we use lenses of our own grinding. However, its when Pirsig
goes on to suggest that we can _discard_ the lenses entirely, that the
pragmatist wishes he hadn't pressed the analogy too hard. The suggestion is
that we can get rid of our static patterns, that we can shed our personal
histories.
dmb replies:
Here we have a slightly different problem. This time your misunderstanding
of Pirsig is NOT caused by the failure to make the social/intellectual
distinction, but the static/Dynamic distinction. (Have you ever read LILA?)
Pirsig asserts that anyone who believes he can escape from the mythos does
not understand what the mythos is. He fully accepts that language shapes and
forms our consciousness rather than reflecting it, but when he talks about
discarding the lenses entirely, he's not taking it all back. He's talking
about the mystical experience. He's talking about a shift in consciousness
that mystics all over the globe have talked about for ages. He's not talking
about perfect clarity to see the foundation. That you interpret it that way
only reveals your own athiest and physicalist bias. Don't forget that Pirsig
is neither of these. He's approximately the opposite. He's an
anti-materialist mystic. I believe this is at the root of a whole series of
misinterpretations and this is just one more example.
"Some of the most honored philsophers in history have been mystics:
Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language;
that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of
dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American Church argues
that peyote can force-feed a mystic understanding upon those who were
normally resistant to it,.." LILA (ch 5)
Matt K wrote:
Like I said in the last post, the idea of Western politics is that we only
set practical boundaries to political conversation. Philosophy is
moreorless excluded because over the course of history it has become more
and more out of touch with social problems (roughly paralleling the
increasing professionalization of philosophy). So when I say philosophy is
impractical as an instrument of social change, it is because most people are
unfamiliar with the distinctive conversation that is philosophy.
dmb replies:
Well, there political philosophy and a whole range of disciplines that
address social problems. Philosophy isn't excluded from the debate so much
as there are a great deal of other disciplines in the conversation. This is
the age of specialization, that's all. There are "out-of-touch"
conversations going on in philosophy simply because the various fields of
inquiry have narrowed even as they grew in number. Sociology, political
science, history, psychology, urban planning, democraphics, international
relations, and a zillion other ologies have taken over turf that once
belonged to philosophy. Even physics once belonged to philosophy. I don't
think we can rightly read this historical development as some kind of
extinction or social irrelevance for philosophy.
In fact, I think Pirsig and Wilber, unlike Rorty, both offer some extremely
useful insights into the nature of our political conflicts. Not to mention
the Enlightenment thinkers, who shaped the world we live in. You ingrate!
;-)
Ken Wilber says:
"h no! You cannot even begin to make sense of the human condition without
looking deeply into philosophical issues. Even those who totally reject the
importance or the validity of philosophy -- they give philosophical reasons
for the rejection! In other words, whether you like it or not, to be human
is to be a philosopher, and your only choice is whether to be a good one or
a bad one.
And so, once you decide that you want to try to be a good philosopher, then
this tends to happen: if, as a philosopher, you ever allow yourself to
decide that you have some actual conclusions -- about the nature of reality,
the nature of human beings, of spirit, of the good and the true and the
beautiful -- than you very quickly realize that it is absolutely mandatory
to try to make society a place in which the greatest number of people are
free to pursue the good and the true and the beautiful. That becomes a
burning categorical imperative, and it eats into your soul with its
unrelenting moral demand.
As Foucault pointed out, one of the many great things about Kant is that he
was the first modern philosopher to ask the crucial question, What does it
mean for a society to be enlightened (in Kant's essay, "What is
Enlightenment?")? In other words, not just "enlightenment" for you or me,
but for society at large! Or Karl Marx: philosophers in the past have merely
tried to understand reality, whereas the real task is to change it. To be
socially committed!And so, as a modern philosopher, you are suddenly in the
broad field of political theory. You realize that Bodhisattvas are going to
have to become politicians, as weird as that might initially sound."
Matt K wrote:
For Western political thinkers like myself, however, we think these
suggestions and lamentations are fruitless nostalgia. We think them
fruitless, not necessarily because the situation couldn't be reversed, but
because we think the gains of our current situation outweigh the losses. We
think the freedom to choose whether you do philosophy or not outweighs the
benefits of everyone having Plato's Republic memorized. We don't think
philosophy itself is useless or fruitless, we simply think it sits alongside
with all the other tools we use for social change. Philosophy is a good
handmaiden to politics, but a poor master.
dmb says:
"Western political thinkers like myself"? Congratulations, sir. I believe no
one has ever achieved this level of arrogance in the forum before. And thank
you. You have hereby officially taken Struan's place as the guy who makes me
look humble by comparison. I'm forever in your debt. But seriously,...
Pirsig doesn't go so far as to say that Philosophy should be the master of
politics, but he comes close. Again Pirsig differs because of the MOQ's
distinction between the social and intellectual levels. He says the conflict
between social and intellectual values is an earthquake in values, a period
of evolutionary transformation, a hurricane of political forces and "that
hurricane is the history of the 20th century". And so instead of describing
the matter as a problem of incompitable vocabularies, Pirsig is saying that
two completely different levels of reality are in conflict in the world and
that we have a moral responsibility to be on the correct side in that
conflict. This moral compass is designed to replace the "paralyzing
confusion..that dominates all thoughts about morality and society today",
(CH 24) which is represented so well by "the pragmatist".
"Now it should be stated at this point that the MOQ SUPPORTS this dominance
of intellect over society. It says intellect is a higher level of evolution
than society; therefore, it is a more moral level than society." (CH 22)
I owe you a bottle of eye drops, dear reader. Thanks.
dmb
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