ROGER GIVES MORE INPUT ON THE EVILS OF SOM
Jon recently asked our opinion on the following topic.
JON:
"Subject-Objects metaphysics gets blown waaayyy out of proportion by
supporters of Pirsig's MoQ. Struan stressed the importance of this apparent
folly repeatedly. He said that no "serious" philosophers make any kind of big
deal over the SO division, and that this was perhaps Pirsig's biggest blunder
of all."
ROG:
Below is a quote from Kim & Sosa's "A Companion to Metaphysics" that I got
from the section on Alfred Whitehead. This was the philosopher that Pirsig
quotes to help him explain DQ. Whitehead was a 20th Century philosopher who
based his ideas on modern physics and evolution as opposed to quaint
Newtonian mechanistic materialism. He basically built a metaphysics on
RELATION.
KIM & SOSA :
"Like many thinkers in the recent past, Whitehead is convinced that
Descartes, with his dualistic ontology, is responsible for shunting
philosophy off on a 300 year long wild goose chase. If the knower is indeed
a Cartesian substance requiring nothing (except perhaps God) in order to
exist, there is no coherent way for that knower to break out of its isolation
and enter into relations with an external world.... Some contemporary
philosophers have suggested that philosophy has been driven in a box that
should be labeled "The End of Philosophy ......... [Whitehead] believes we
must recognize that all epistomological difficulties are only disguised
metaphysical difficulties; the problems about knowing which have bedevilled
modern philosophy have their roots in misguided assumptions about the nature
of knowers."
"...... a Whiteheadian being, in an important sense IS its relations to other
beings..... Rather than give us a Cartesian Dualism, Whitehead argues for
neutral monism embracing relatedness to its very core."
ROG:
I have not read in depth into A. Whitehead, but the similarities to Pirsig
seem obvious. And we do know from Lila that Pirsig has some familiarity and
respect of the man's writings (since he uses him to support his most 'sacred'
concept). Anthony Mcwatt of the squad did some write-ups on Whitehead a few
years ago in the LS if anyone is interested in reading more. I tried briefly
to find them but was unable.
In summary, I think that there is a modern school of philosophers that
believe dualism (whether implicit or explicit) really is a problem.
Oh, and personally I really do see a pattern of issues that can be resolved
by the MOQ that classical philosophy makes a mess of.
Roger
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