Hi Peter, David and all,
Peter, I think we actually agree of everything:
By your own admission, we
> . ..agree that the absence of this "absoluteness" [absolute truth]
> does not in any way
> imply that "anything goes," or that one truth is as good as another -
that
> way surely lies madness (or a career in marketing).
I think that after some careful rewording we can also agree also on the
following issues,
> But i don't wholly agree that we need to completely ditch a truth when
we
> find a better one; Newtonian physics still works quite well in some
> situations.
In a case like this, we can "bracket" what was previously considered
true by adding provisos e.g. that Newton's laws apply as long as we are
dealing with velocities well below the speed of light. The proviso
becomes a part of the new truth.
> And I don't wholly agree that we should only forgo a truth when we
come
> across a better one. It's a timescale thing, really - better merely
means
> more appropriate in current circumstances, -according to our ability
to
> assess such circumstances.
All I meant was that we shouldn't abandon something for something WORSE
(e.g. replace Newton with Aristotle). Sometimes we can abandon a "bad"
truth and replace it with nothing (and thereby save a lot of witch
burning).
>So the truth we use is tied up with some notion
> of competance(in the widest sense). And sometimes we may utilise
multiple
> (and sometimes mutually contradictory) truths simultaneously. If we
can't
> resolve the paradox, we just sort of 'switch between'.
Yes but . . . we resolve the contradictions by limiting each truth to a
particular context. Sometimes these contexts can be highly inventive
(M'lord, when I admitted to the officer that I was driving at 185 mph,
what I really meant was . . . .)
Arbitrarily invoking contexts is easy, subjective and lazy - we do it
all the time though.
> But resolving the
> apparent paradox generally requires some sort of paradigm shift, and
it has
> always been my impression that that is what Pirsig was writing about.
This is hard and rare. It may still involve the emergence of contexts to
bracket former truths, but now they are non-arbitrary, and reflect a
deeper truth.
> The other thing I have a problem with is the association of "Quality"
with
> "utility" which you implied in your last.
[snip]
> In fact, Utility - to the individual- is wholly tied
> up with time-frame considerations.
My comment was a direct response to what you wrote previously:
"> Use it when it's useful, and discard it when its not...?"
I fully agree with the time-frame consideration, and we should give the
word Utility the widest possible definition, to include VALUE, APPEAL
etc. For that matter, we might as well just use the word Quality.
> Lastly, the mysticism thing:
I had written:
"We *know* what quality is, so it isn't mystical."
This bothered DAVID P. who quoted:
> "The Tao that can be known is not Tao.
> The substance of the World is only a name for Tao."
I'm sure that this could be open to all sorts of interpretations
(contextual bracketing), especially since it is a translation. What word
wase used for "known" in the original?
Within the context(!) of this discussion, I refer again to Phaedrus'
teaching technique, by which he demonstrated to the students that they
"knew" the difference between good writing and bad writing without any
teacher needing to define that difference between them. I think that the
Tao is taking about something ABSOLUTE that may indeed be mystical.
PETER says
> perhaps I'm using a slightly different idea of
> mysticism; I merely think of it as referring to the 'unknowable' in
the
> sense of indefinable. for this, only the edges need to be "hidden".
This
> definition applies to more entities that we 'know' than we generally
> realise. Perhaps I'm wrong here, in which case I need another word for
that
> concept. Suggestions, anyone?
We need to differentiate between the unknown and the unknowable.
Mysticism underpins everything with the unknowable. Rational philosophy
(as we know it) assumes that the unknown may be explored and uncovered
ad infinitum, even if it remains a bottomless pit.
So Peter, are we going to agree to agree or to agree to disagree?
Jonathan
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:47 BST