Hi Platt, Bo, Scott, John, and all.
This is a minor post only trying to clear up the definition of
"narrow/strict empiricist".
----- Original Message -----
From: Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2002 6:42 AM
Subject: Re: MD Consciousness
> Hi Gary:
>
> > [Gary]:Pirsig believes in things
> > beyond the sense, hence he is not a narrow/strict empiricist.
>
> I doubt it. As I mentioned, Pirsig is a strict empiricist who adds to the
> list of physical senses a "sense of value" which accounts for our
> intuitions and intentions. Nowhere in LILA do I find any suggestion that
> Pirsig believes in apparitions "beyond the sense."
GARY: Okay, I came by the definition of narrow empiricist from DiSanto and
Steele's book: "Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." I
will cite them from page 162-3, & lastly from pg174]:
-----------------
What are you doing when you are knowing? If you say that what you are
primarily doing is experiencing, you can be labeled an "empiricist". If you
say that what you are primarily doing is using reason in on way or another,
you can be labeled a "rationalist". If you say that what you are doing is
willing or choosing or selecting, consciously or subconsciously, you can be
labeled a "voluntarist". If you say that you are primarily feeling, you are
an "emotivist". If you say that you are primarily intuiting, you are an
"intuitionist". The list could go on.
You can take the analytic knife and carve up empiricism into "broad
empiricism" and "narrow empiricism". ...if you are a "narrow empiricist",
you tend to think of experience only in terms of sensory data. Your basic
contention is that we gather knowledge--at least factual knowledge--by
gathering and working with the reports of our senses. Hence, if presented
with a factual claim, as a narrow empiricist you are quick to ask about the
sensory data that are available to support the claim. If no indication of
pertinent sensory data is forthcoming, as a narrow empiricist you are quick
to dismiss the claim. ...If you are a thoroughgoing narrow empiricist like
David Hume, you may go so far as to say that factual knowledge in the
strictest sense is only that which is verified within sense experience. In
that case, you will regard various rational concepts and principles that are
not verified within sense experience as not yielding genuine knowledge
(however much they might be practically useful).
----------------[From here the author's explain all of the varying
empiricist systems and how Pirsig doesn't fit solely into any of those
systems. According to the author's by positing Quality, Pirsig went beyond
not only narrow empiricism but all the rest of the established systems.]
----------------------The following is from pg 174:
What are you doing when you are knowing? You have been considering various
answers to that question, answers centering on the distinct cognitional
activities and issuing in distinct epistemological positions. Suppose that
you take away the "ism" from those distinct positions and consider the
distinct activates that have just been called to your attention. What do
you see? Perhaps you see the empiricist's sense experience, the
intellectualist's understanding of the forms of things, the rationalist's
reasoning with categories in logical patterns, the voluntarist's willing of
what is considered valuable, the cognitive emotivist's feeling of values,
and the intuitionist's intuition of unanalyzed (though not necessarily
unanalyzable) meaning and values.
Now look a little more closely. Do you perhaps see those six activities
conveniently arranging themselves into two distinct epistemological
trinities? Do you see emerging a "classic" epistemological trinity of sense
experience, understanding, and reasoning? Can you image an implementation
of scientific method that does not involve all three of those activities?
Do you also see emerging a "romantic" epistemological trinity of feeling,
intuition, and will? ....You don't find a fully developed epistemology in
ZMM, but you do find epistemological ideas that seem to be awaiting and even
crying out for development--for example, the idea that there is a
preconscious moment of knowing, a moment of Quality awareness or Quality
intuition, which ought to be taken very seriously. This is not the place to
attempt a full development of the sort of epistemology that ZMM implies. It
is however, the place to note that an epistemology true to the spirit of ZMM
would be an inclusive epistemology, one that overcomes the "noncoalescence
between reason and feeling" that makes technology come across as ugly, one
that bridges the classic-romantic split by somehow interweaving the classic
and romantic epistemological trinities."
--------------------
Hence, when I said Pirsig was not a narrow empiricist, that he beleive in
things beyond what can be directly sensed, I was refering to Quality. I
was not saying that Pirsig disregarded sense data. I was pointing out that
he has gone beyond merely using sense data as the sole and exclusive arbiter
of knowledge. Rahter Pirsig brings to bear all six modalities of
knowledge: sense data, understanding, reasoning, feeling, intuition, and
will. All six of those modalities are needed to experience Quality and
hence obtain knowledge.
Hope that make sense. A minor point of definitions.
Gary
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