Greetings,
Elephant gives a critique of part of my argument and recognises 'that there
are considerations against this kind of interpretation'. That being
recognised, I will not bother spelling them out. Whether Elephant is right
or wrong in his own personal views does not really interest me. Quick
comment on this though:
ELEPHANT:
"'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."
1) No it isn't
2) Yes we do and we can
I will stick with the terminal charge of inconsistency if those are the best
reasons you can provide not to do so.
What does interest me is my central point that Elephant has done what
Murdoch warned herself against (which she did, despite Elephant's claim to
the contrary) and invented his own Pirsig. Elephant provides the most
stunning example yet in his latest posting. Elephant thinks that he disposes
of my very powerful argument AGAINST PIRSIG NOT ELEPHANT by writing:
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.'
I must say that it is a joy for a debater such as myself to watch Elephant
fall hook line and sinker for what struck me as a painfully obvious set-up.
Phaedrus would have been proud. I turn to Pirsig and invite direct
comparison:
PIRSIG:
'Because Quality is morality. Make no mistake about it, they are identical.'
(Last line Chpt 7).
Pirsig is even more categorical than usual on this one. 'Quality IS
morality'. Elephant, equally categorically, states that 'Good ISN'T
morality'. I look forward with great relish to someone telling me that, in
the moq, Good does not equal Quality, at which point I will have a field
day.
The fact of the matter is, Elephant, that there is a huge gap between
'holding a theoretical account' of what Pirsig writes and indulging in
straight contradiction of his ideas while claiming affinity. You might see
huge irony in that, I simply see one of what Nietzsche called the 'worst
readers' who 'take what they can use and confound the rest'. Perhaps you
might like to look back at my argument and address it from the point of view
of the moq instead of your own Platonism.
THE IRRELEVANT STUFF:
And the coup-de-grace? My apologies, it seemed obvious to me. It referred to
where you surrendered your insistence that the 'pragmatist charge' is 'a
strong point which Struan should answer'. Given that you, in your own words,
'do not yet understand (my) own view well enough' to know whether or not I
have a pragmatist charge to answer, it would seem that the 'pragmatist
charge' was levelled against the Struan of your, again in your own words,
'speculative flights of fancy' and not me at all. As that was the sole
purpose of my posting to you, (leaving aside the aside), I consider my
posting to have achieved its aim in full.
The 'showing your workings' charge is equally misplaced. I always explain
the premises of my critiques. I do not, nor should I, explain my own beliefs
on this forum when they are irrelevant to the moq. The only possible reason
you could be interested in them is to have an Elephant's Plato v Struan
argument. That would not be relevant to this forum and I am not going to do
it.
Struan
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