Struan:
you wrote:
"Rick, would you at least concede that subject object thinking is not a
metaphysics?"
I'll begin with this:
(from Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--Section 5 pg.
138)
"When you ask broad questions about reality, you have entered the area of
philosophy known as metaphysics. The word itself was coined by Aristotle's
followers sometime after Aristotle's death, when it was used as the title
for a particular set of Aristotle's treatises. Why is was called
"metaphysics" is open to question. One speculation is that the title
originally referred to the location of the work within the collection of one
of Aristotle's followers (Andronicus of Rhodes). Since this set of
Aristotle's treatises was located on the shelf "after" (meta in Greek) a
work that dealt with "nature" (physica in Greek), the set was called
Metaphysica. Another speculation is that Aristotle's followers coined the
word as a way of saying that the treatises, because of their greater
abstractness, should only be studied "after" the treatises dealing with
nature. A third speculation is that the title was meant to indicate that
the treatises went intellectually "beyond" -meta also means "beyond" as well
as after- the work on nature.... [The work] asked about the fundamental
principles, the causes and constituents, not simply of this sector or that,
but of all things, of whatever is, of "being" as a whole.
RICK:
The first thing I would like to say is that in light of the above
information I believe that what does or does not constitute a "metaphysics"
will be greatly subjective. I'm sure we'll get as many different answers as
we can find definitions.....
To answer your question, I am tempted to draw a distinction between the
notions of (1) subject/object logic (SOL) and (2) subject/object
metaphysics (SOM). I'd say SOL is a "tool" employed in thought (possibly
expressed by the scientific method or Phaedrus's knife) while SOM is a more
extreme version of the same position in which SOL is mistaken to be a more
complete and final metaphysics (a possible example may be Cartesian-style
dualism--- Descartes thought of himself as a metaphysician, right?). I'm
not exactly sure if this is what you mean when you say "subject object
thinking". But I suspect we're talking about the same basic distinction.
Now you point out (if I understand correctly) that this SOM isn't truly
a metaphysics because it addresses only human understanding and not the more
fundamental nature of the universe.... and if that's what you are indeed
saying then I agree... in fact I think even Pirsig might agree that half the
problem with a "Subject/Object Metaphysics" is that it isn't really a
metaphysics at all... just a particular method of thinking, masquerading as
a complete metaphysics.
The next question of course is whether the mistake is Pirsig's or one of
general philosophy (or maybe the general public).... it has been said that
Pirsig's SOM is a strawman position held by no one. This may be true to an
extent, but I think if you allow Pirsig's SOM to be a literary
representative of "dualistic" philosophies... (mind/matter, subject/object,
ideas/forms) you can get a notion of what he's trying to get at....
So my answer to your question (assuming I understand it) is: Yes. I
concede that subject/object thinking (logic) is not a metaphysics...
However, I'm not sure if this argumentatively weakens or strengthens
Pirsig's position. Good cases could be made for both. As the MoQ is
greatly defined in its relationship to SOM the MoQ could be considered (as
you consider it, I believe) as incoherent. However, identifying the fact
that SOL isn't really and was never supposed to be a Metaphysics could
strengthen Pirsig's claim that the MoQ is in fact a superior way of viewing
things.... not the least because it IS a metaphysics....
Rick
>
> As far as the MoQ is concerned, I know that it is supposed to be a
metaphysical position, but
> suspect this may have come about as a result of confusion on the part of
the author. As I said, this
> will take more work so I will stop for now, not having the evidence to
back it up.
>
> How about this mythical SOM then, Rick?
>
> Struan
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