Struan, all,
Sorry for not being able to answer today all the questions that have been
directly put to me in moq_discuss and focus. Real Life has intruded in one
of it's uglier moods and I just didn't get the time.
- I will certainly talk about Plato's approach to truth in the context of
his understanding of Parmenides, just as soon as I get the chance -
But just at the moment... Struan.
STRUAN WROTE:
> Elephant. Your first 'monism' posting was ambiguous. For that reason I gave
> two alternative refutations of your claim that I have a 'pragmatic charge' to
> answer. You accepted the second and so the charge is refuted. From my point of
> view a satisfactory conclusion.
ELEPHANT:
A breathtaking coup de grace. Except that I have absolutely no idea what
you are talking about. And you cite nothing to help me in my state of
ignorance. Exactly what refutation of my own argument have have I
'accepted?'
STRUAN WROTE:
> To continue my aside for one moment. Contextual ethics consistent with the
> Good are hardly new, as any Platonist with a capital 'P' will appreciate.
ELEPHANT:
Indeed.
STRUAN:
> Pirsig, by contrast, was tempted 'to take all the moral conflicts of the world
> and, one by one, see how they fit . . .within this framework.' By 'this
> framework' he means his taxonomy of levels. His whole thesis is based upon
> layer upon layer of moral codes or rules underneath what he terms, 'Dynamic
> morality'. These codes (rules) are, for Pirsig, 'ABSOLUTELY' and
> 'SCIENTIFICALLY' proven and binding upon 'ALL PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES'. Pirsig
> suggests that, 'We can now deduce codes based upon evolution that analyse
> moral arguments WITH GREATER PRECISION THAN BEFORE'.
>
> On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Elephant who claims:
>
> ELEPHANT:
> "Well MOQ, IMHO, says that we should all
> think carefully about the rules we live our lives by, but that since the
> objective of these rules is to serve higher goods (dynamic quality and
> enlightenment towards that quality) different rules will serve better in
> different situations and for different individuals."
>
> Pirsig is clear that every moral dilemma can be solved by the moq, absolutely
> and scientifically for all people at all times. Elephant tells us that we
> can't expect good to reside in consistency of action. Pirsig is convinced he
> has provided the ability to analyse moral arguments with a new level of
> precision.
ELEPHANT:
In exegesis, one can only make suggestions. What I suggest, and have
suggested over in Focus where replies indicate that my line of thought has
been followed before, is that the taxonomy of the levels is intended as an
antropological project. The taxonomy of the levels I have taken to be an
application of MOQ to the western mythos (in which the concept of the
inorganic figures), rather than the MOQ itself. The precision that is
offered is an antropological precision. I argued for this interpretation on
numerous grounds. Firstly there are the remarks about the impossibility
perfect chess which suggest that Prisig takes a purely instrumental veiw of
those parts of his metaphysics which constitute a taxonomy of moral beleif,
in contrast to other parts of his metaphysics (the static/dynamic split)
which seem less up for grabs, less part of some board game. Secondly there
is the question of what description Pirsig would give of
individuals/cultures like the aboriginal australians, who, for instance,
have no real concept of the inorganic (rocks are animals from the dreamtime
etc). A hint is given here in the reference to the invisibility of Cook's
ships. This area of support for my reading extends to his discussion of the
insane. In all cases Prisig refuses an 'ultimate' taxonomy, beyond noting
that lives are centrally focused on the pursuit of quality even for the
insane, and tells us that we won't have understood a person, or be in a
possition to communicate with or help them, until we undestand, that is give
some taxonomy of, the forms and levels which this pursuit takes in that
individual. Pirsig here has the same approach to Lila, to the Insane, and
to the Land of the Free (no disrespect intended). His taxonomy is an
instrumental taxonomy, the taxonomy deployed by a self appointed doctor with
a particular (unrealised) cure in mind, viz the transcending of patterns.
This connects with the way he talks about his own period of 'insanity' as
the height of his own moral development, from which certain developed
metaphysical pictures have constituted some kind of 'fall', redeemed only by
their directeness at that state.
I recognise that there are considerations against this kind of
interpretation, but I submit that this is because Prisig is no less complex
than anyone else is. 'Ah - inconsistency!' doesn't seem to me to be a proper
response to a complex body of beliefs like Pirsig's, because (1) the quality
of Pirsig's work is plain to see, and because (2) we have no good reason to
think we're so smart that we can do any better. What we owe Pirsig is to
continue and improve on his attempt to make sense of things, not trample any
tulip of understanding into the mulch with cries of glee.
STRUAN WROTE:
> Elephant provides only the age old, abstract, and anything but
> precise, advice to serve a higher good. Pirsig is absolutely clear that 'we
> are at last dealing with morals on the basis of reason'. Elephant is equally
> clear that good (morality) is something that, 'we can all intuit' (i.e.
> immediate apprehension without reason).
ELEPHANT:
Good isn't morality, any more than London is a tube map. Nobody intuits
morality - they intuit the Good. Morality is what reason does with these
intuitions.
The 'anything but precise' point also annoys, given the lengths I have gone
to show how the most precise (and personal) moral imperatives (be unselfish)
derive from what you call 'abstract' good, but which is actually the reality
from which all else is absracted. Nor am I wanting to 'serve' a higher
good, as if I am now to be the slave and someone else the master. My
picture is of someone mastering themselves through reason-guided pursuit of
the good. That is a picture common to Plato Buddhism and Prisig. It is put
forward as the only proper cohabitation of reason and intuition.
STRUAN WROTE:
> It seems to me that you, Elephant, are doing what Murdoch warned herself
> against, in that you have created your own Pirsig. Might I suggest that when
> you use Pirsig to criticise my arguments, you actually take some account of
> what he wrote as opposed to shoe-horning him into your own pet theory?
ELEPHANT:
A fair point. From this point onwards, given that 'no-one' beleives in pure
objectivity (SOM is a strawman), and given that I am to be forbidden from
holding my own quality-aimed theories about Pirsig as this creates him anew
for me, I will now adopt the only viable alternative: I will adopt *your*
theories! You got me banged to rights there guvnor and no mistake.
(!!!!!!IRONY!!!!!)
(I would send you the version where '!!!IRONY!!!!' flashes red and green to
seaside organ playing, but DHTML posts might not be appreciated, and the
whole monty python thing has been DONE TO DEATH)
Oh, and by the way, you've missed Murdoch's point yet again. What she goes
on to say in the passage you allude to is that we must be careful about
replacing Plato's thought with a fantasy of Plato's thought, but that there
is no sense in which 'Plato's thought' could ever be anything other than a
picture of Plato's thought. 'Picture making', the holding of theoretical
accounts, is unavoidable.
STRUAN WROTE:
> Finally, I will not be taking up your offer to give an expanded account of my
> own views. This is a forum for discussing the moq, not me. Can you imagine the
> flak I would cop if I started to propose and then defend in detail a,
> 'metaphysics of Struan', on a forum devoted to Pirsig? No chance, stick to
> your speculative flights of fancy and I will stick to the purpose of the
> forum.
ELEPHANT:
Fairy nuff. But I only mentioned this because, earlier on, you so strongly
asserted it as a crime not to 'show your workings' in philosophy (something
about a conclusion without the 'supporting workings' not being a conclusion
but mere speculation?) - atleast this seemed to be a crime when committed by
some people. Er, can we take it that it is OK when you do it then?
Refusing to explain the positive veiws which might justify your negative
comments certainly looks like a refusal to show one's workings. In terms
that you and I might otherwise adopt, Straun, it is a refusal to discuss
one's premises. Your philosophical premises interest me just insofar as
your conclusions about MOQ do, neither more nor less: so it would be
entirely to the purpose of this forum if you were to tell us what they are.
It's late, and I've had a very, very, very bad day. Please excuse the
outbreak of brittle crustyness.
A VERY, VERY, VERY PUZZLED ELEPHANT
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