Hi Matt - amused Endorphin now.
> I couldn't help but smile through most of your message. Your
> incorrigibility is impressive. My only wish is to have been a bit
> more persuasive.
Scott delivered an input on the "nominalist" issue.
> > While I've gotten a lot from Rorty, I think his avowal of nominalism is
> > self-contradictory on his part. To be a nominalist is to assume that there
> > is a non-verbal reality, something for one's words to be about, and so one
> > starts on the slippery slope back to a correspondence theory of truth --
> > and so SOM. This isn't to say that there isn't reality beyond the words of
> > English, Hopi, and all other languages, but to realize that nothing we can
> > experience isn't in some sense conventional, part of a system of signs.
...this I find most apt. The notion of a reality "out there" which our words try
to catch is part of the subject/object metaphysics, yet, from the self-same
SOM, it's hard to sustain the balance, there is an urge to find what is of
greatest import: the words or the non-verbal reality. This search is as
unsolved as all S/O ventures because there is no such FUNDAMENTAL
division. I railed about the many who present books and authors who are
supposed to override Pirsig, but the number that come with their new
"insights" about everything being just word and/or just maps is even greater.
Matt continued:
> I do use "logic," "rational," and "reason" all fairly interchangably,
> though I wouldn't presume to think that everyone does or force
> everyone to do so. However, you asked who doesn't call for logical
> argument: I for one. Rorty for two. And the early Pirsig in ZMM for
> three. All of this is still sitting outlined in the original
> "Confessions" post.
There is a small difference between logic and rational, the former is arguing
from given premises - even if derived from subjective experience (revelations
even) while rational means an objective explanation. A person who have
experienced an "abduction" (called) will logically conclude that extra-
terrestials exist, while a rationalist won't accept any UFO talk whatsoever.
> To add something of substance here, I would pull out Bo's statement
> "meeting Pirsig through ZAMM and later LILA and the full-fledged MOQ
> brought it all to order inside a new system greater than religion and
> science!!" This is where I think Pirsig went wrong.
You mean he shouldn't have written LILA? He would probably have become
a cult writer figure (like Salinger) but I'm glad he committed himself.
> The transition
> from ZMM to Lila is Pirsig's transition from edifying philosopher to
> systematic philosopher (not that he didn't show tendencies of both in
> both books). Pirsig created some very helpful tools in ZMM including
> "Quality," the "romantic/classical" division, and the "Church of
> Reason," among others. In Lila, however, Pirsig moved from trying to
> dissolve the Kantian value spheres (Art, Science, and Morality) to
> trying to re-systematize them or, as Bo says, "brought it all to order
> inside a new system greater than religion and science!!" Pirsig, in
> Lila, attempts to repudiate the Kantian system of philosophy all the
> while continuing the Kantian project of systematizing.
You see some special Kantian philosophy, but in the MOQ versus SOM
context he was merely the climax of the SOM school (is there any other
outside this small circle?). Scott will know that the empiricists demonstrated
that there is nothing "out there" except quantities, while qualities were
subjective. Smell is molecular configurations; colours are different wave-
lengths of the electromagnetic spectrum ...etc. for all senses, and as senses
are all we have, the conclusion was that we create reality (idealism). Kant
wanted to save reason against this "pure speculation", but just made it even
more weird. Now even time, space and causation became subjective ..."Für
Uns" in German, while the objective (An Sich) no-one would ever know.
> In fact, Pirsig's ambivalent relation to Kant is possibly one of the
> most interesting facets about Pirsig's thought. We find Pirsig openly
> borrowing some of Kant's tools and making some of the same fundamental
> moves as the master chess player. (Its worth pointing out at least
> one: Kant's first cut of Reality is between phenomena and noumena.
> Phenomena was the definable stuff science was interested. Noumena is
> undefinable. Sound familiar?)
Yes, only that I believe the said Für Uns/An Sich was Kant's innermost
divide, but that he took for granted. He then subdivided "Für Uns" the said
way.
> And yet, at least in ZMM, Pirsig's
> project is almost entirely anti-Kantian. Essentially, what I want to
> say is that Pirsig is being a good philosopher when he is edifying and
> recontextualizing, not when he's systematic and logically arguing.
> Pirsig the Rhetorician and Cultural Critic, not Pirsig the Platonic
> Dialectician.
Philosophy has been footnotes to Kant so after 250 years of regurgitating
him it is about time someone said something brand new. It's just that it is so
outrageously new that very few understands Pirsig and continue like the
proverbial cartoon figure not realizing that the ground has shifted.
The incorrigible
Bo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:18 BST