Jon,
Touché! Your saber is indeed sharp.
Hegel certainly was one of the more enlightened of the modern classical
philosophers. And I concede that he was indeed experiential and was
influential in redefining the use of the dialectic. However, it appears that
the framework of his arguments are such that the "ends" are of primary
importance (e.g. the reconciliation of opposing theories). It appears that
with Pirsig however, especially in LILA, that reconciliation isn't as
important as the experience of not knowing (the pinnacle of Taoist thought.)
Regarding Heracleitus, he is most definitely attributed with a philosophy of
constant flux, to which I have no argument. And I concede that Hegel admired
and referred to this much maligned Greek. However, we are forced to rely on
second-hand information regarding him as none of his writings have survived.
As to whether Hegel is an "obvious link between Eastern and Western
thought", I would argue that he was, rather, an obvious link between
Pre-Christian and Post-Christian thought. His interpretation of the role of
opposites in the dialectic process, in order to reach, first conflict, then
reconciliation is very Western. The role of Yin and Yang in Eastern
philosophy is less about opposites than it is about varying degrees of the
same thing. However I again concede (now thrice) that Hegel's view that the
whole is of greater value than its parts is very Eastern and in this regard
does serve as the link that you describe.
In conclusion I doff my cap to a worthy warrior of words, and hopefully from
the verbal exchange that has produced these wounds that I now bear and the
opportunity to intersperse my concessions with a few responses, that we may
reach a reconciliation a la Hegel of the thesis and antithesis to discover
a greater Truth than the sum of the parts.
Thracian Bard
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Lynch <jonlynch_13@hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: MD General criticism of MOQ [2nd attempt]
>
> THRACIAN IMPRECISELY SPECULATED:
>
> >RMP as Phaedrus "philosophizes" which is generally defined as to theorize
> >or speculate in an imprecise manner. This is an approach that is markedly
> >different than that of Western philosophy a la Hegel. RMP doesn't say
that
> >such-and-such is and "nonsuch-and-nonsuch" is not. Rather, he takes the
> >reader on a journey of discovery during which truths discovered early in
> >the journey may be found false later in the journey, in light of further
> >experience. In other words, the only constant is change. What is true
today
> >is false tomorrow - but it may be true again on the following day. First
> >there is a mountain! Then there is no mountain! Then there IS a mountain!
> >It's what the I Ching is all about. It is the essence of Taoism. And, if
> >the Tao could be named (which it can't), it might be called QUALITY!
>
>
> It's funny that you use the example of Hegel - this is exactly what I was
> writing about in the first place. Hegel's philosophy IS experiential,
> progressive, narrational, developmental, whatever you want to call it - an
> open-ended dialectic. "Truth" on one level is shown to be partial and not
> self-sufficient on the next level of the philosophy's progress. It's not
for
> nothing that Hegel is pointed to as the obvious link between Eastern and
> Western thought. "The only constant is change"- it was Hegel who
> reintroduced Herakleitus into 'serious' Western philosophy.
> The only place Hegel calls a halt to the movement of his system, and in
that
> sense, 'totalises' or seals off his system from further modification, is
the
> conclusion of the 'Phenomenology', which suggests that the end of the
> development of truth lies in Hegel's philosophy itself, which represents
the
> Time-Spirit reading itself, the Time-Spirit's final self-knowledge. This
> seems like hubris on the one hand, though on the other you could see it as
a
> tacit admission that one person's speculative theory can't over-reach the
> bounds of their own imprecise speculating and theorizing; Hegel's
narrative
> of everything must end with Hegel, just as Pirsig's must end with Pirsig.
> The Young Hegelians quickly dropped this 'conclusive' aspect of Hegel's
> system anyway.
> My point, again, is that Pirsig's philosophy, far from being "markedly
> different" from the idealist Western mainstream, fits comfortably within
its
> traditional parameters and techniques of discourse.
>
> Lynch
>
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