Hi Jonathan:
You wrote:
What constitutes primary empirical evidence? Does such a thing exist,
or is it an unattainable ideal? (That's an ironic twist on the idealism vs.
empiricism argument).
That’s the sort of gutsy philosophical question that I find fascinating
and deserves a thread of its own
The best non-Pirsigian answer I’ve come across is the following from
the pen of William James:
“A conscious field plus its object as felt or thought of plus an attitude
towards the object plus the sense of a self to whom the attitude
belongs --such a concrete bit of personal experience may be a small
bit, but it is a solid bit as long as it lasts; not hollow, not a mere
abstract element of experience such as the “object” is when taken
alone. It is a full fact of the kind to which all realities whatsoever must
belong.”
Here’s a possible Pirsig version:
Primary empirical evidence of reality is personal experience of an
aesthetic continuum (awareness) containing a moral pattern (object)
identified initially by its value (the front edge of experience) and
subsequently interpreted by the person’s social and/or intellectual
framework (background).
(Parens added to define Pirsig’s ideas and terms in more familiar
language.)
What I find convincing in both definitions is the presence of
consciousness. In other words, empirical evidence always includes
the mind that creates the evidence. To put it another way, models of
reality usually make the mistake of leaving out the mind that created
the model. Quantum physicists learned that mistake to their
amazement and for some, consternation still.
Any other takers on what constitutes empirical evidence?
Platt
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