ELEPHANT TO STRUAN
STRUAN WROTE:
> 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.
ELEPHANT:
I try to recognise the considerations which support contrary veiws. This
seems to me to be the first requirement for making any challenge to such
veiws. And it is strange that you write against my personal veiws on Prisig
if they do not interest you.
STRUAN:
>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.
ELEPHANT:
My two bullet points were not reasons, true. They were a summation of
conclusions reached elsewhere. It strikes me that we will not advance far
if we simply exchange conclusions for conclusions. The next step will be
abuse, so, in the spirit of cooperative enquiry, why don't we try to pick
our fights with arguments, not bullet points.
STRUAN:
> 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.
ELEPHANT:
That is an excellent consideration against my reading. But considerations
are things we consider, hopefully, and I have considered it. It seems to me
that morality corresponds to static patterns of quality, and this entirely
accords with my idea that morality is the application of intellect to the
intellectual formalisation of a reality which is preintellectual, ie Dynamic
Quality. Static Quality is Morality: that's what Pirsig was saying.
Dynamic Quality is not Morality: that's what I was saying. So, no conflict.
Consideration considered.
STRUAN WROTE:
> 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.
ELEPHANT:
I certainly agree with Neitzsche that we ought not to 'take what we can use
and confound the rest', if what we are trying to do is understand someone
(and I have a high opinion of Neitzsche's approach to an understanding of
Plato, so I think he knows whereof he speaks). Considerations must be
considered. They must not be held aloft like scalps. Unlike debaters,
victory is not our objective: truth is. A point where I side with Socrates
against Pirsig's beloved sophists.
STRUAN WROTE:
> 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.
ELEPHANT:
The pragmatist charge remains a strong one. One way of answering it would
be to explain why it does not apply to you, rather than simply asserting
this and letting the obscurity of your reasoning constitute some kind of
defence. What would you call such a defence? The Gollum manouvre? The
reason of Geiges? Perhaps 'cloak of darkness'?
STRUAN WROTE:
> The 'showing your workings' charge is equally misplaced. I always explain
> the premises of my critiques.
ELEPHANT:
Now that is hard to beleive, to put things mildly. Your main charge against
SOM is that the S/O Dichotomy is not a metaphysics. I have asked you to
explain what your premise about metaphysics is, such that the Subject/Object
approach does not constitute a 'metaphysics'. My request here is a simple
request for the premises behind a conclusion I reject. It is very well
summed up in the phrase 'please show your workings'. You have not done
this. Please do not say that you have.
If one has mastery of the technical jargon, it is often possible to make
points that look like technical corrections, but which actually import huge
areas of connected philosophical assumptions. Please be aware that I have
all the supposedly necessary letters after my name to see through this
technique. Don't try it on me.
ELEPHANT
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