From: "marco" <marble@inwind.it>
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:20:21 +0200
Subject: = Re: MD Definition of Q-intellect
Hi Bo, Wim, all
MARCO IN DEFENCE OF THE SOPHISTS
(sorry for the length...)
Dear Bo,
let me jump in, please. I've been awaked by your IMO gross
misinterpretation of the Sophists. I find myself in a terrific
disagreement with your imagine of them as "the defenders of social
value" against the Socrates/Plato/Aristotle gang defenders of the
intellectual value. IMO more than one evidence tells the exact
opposite! Tell me, what is more social, the "man [and NOT mankind!!!]
measure of things" of the Sophists or the "Ipse Dixit" of the
Aristotelians? The Sophists, Protagoras especially, would perfectly
fit in our last century: man as the measure of all things is a very
post-modern sentence. But, that's more important, their idea of arte
is (according to Pirsig) just what we need to save us from the post-
modern chaos.
And also your point that the new objective worldview of Plato and
Aristotle replaced a mythological past represented by the Sophists does
not hold water. If in the ancient Greece someone tried to undermine the
myths of the past, well, they were the Sophists! At the contrary, just
Plato used largely the myths to bring on his philosophical agenda.
I have read again the Sophist section last night, but I don't find any
evidence that RMP would put the Sophists at the social stage. IMO, as
you allow the intellectual connotation only to S/O thinking, you find
yourself trapped in a necessary "social" definition of anything else...
by exclusion, I'd say (and by your own dogma). Then, in a sort of
acrobatic loop, end your reasoning claiming it proves your own
starting point.... What a Sophist!!! :-)
Here is my reading of the story, if you are interested... let me know.
The Sophists were primarily Humanists. And just human rights (those
rights that Pirsig indicates as the protection of the intellectual
freedom from society) like the freedom of assembly, trial by jury,
freedom of speech ... in their primitive version in the ancient
democratic Athens made it possible for the Sophists to exist.
Their main job was as lawyers or speech-writers, often in change of
money on a free market. Their arena was the public "Agora". Something
absolutely new for the times, very different from the good old -and
very social- "schools of thought" and/or the services at some tyrant's
home. Please note that also Socrates was considered a Sophist by his
contemporaries.
And note also that this very fertile individual freedom, that made it
possible also for Plato's and Aristotle's thought to arise and thrive,
lasted just few decades. When the democratic "experiment" failed, we
see that in few years all that suddenly ends. Socrates killed for his
ideas, the Sophists extinguished as well: Protagoras' books were burned
in public. Plato's and Aristotle's thought, OTOH, could survive as -
just like the pre-Socratic (and pre-democratic) thinkers - they opened
their own schools (churches of reason) and they were employed as
teachers of kings and emperors (Aristotle for example was the personal
teacher of Alexander). Dogmatic thinking ("Ipse dixit", "He said")
that was once a norm at the Pythagoras school, was recycled at
Aristotle's. Now tell me, who was more "social"?
What really happened? That postmodernism was not still possible without
a solid "modern" stage. As well as democracy was not still sustainable
as political model, their intellectual model (relativism, focus on
arte instead of specialization, rhetoric art instead of dialectics),
was not very useful for the society of the times. At the contrary, the
idea of an objective truth was much better. It was the "intellect in
the service of society" that was necessary at the times. That way, S/O
logic could grow and originated science and technology. And
consequently the western society could prevail over other models thanks
to that way of thinking that originated in the pre-Socratic age, and
was then perfected by Aristotle.
According to Pirsig, more than 2000 years were necessary for intellect
to get free from society (and IMO this freedom is all but secure).
Anyway at the end of the social era (1918 A.D.), SOM was not able to
rule the world, as it has always been servant of society. In the
following chaos, here comes Pirsig who tries to recover a "arte
focused" ethics. In short, IMO the Sophists were trying to accelerate
the clock of history too much: they were ante-litteram MOQers.
In other words, Bo. You offer the shift from a "social" way of thinking
to intellect (that is objectivity in your opinion), as a shift from
subjectivity to objectivity. Well, false. Objectivity comes first, and
subjectivity is its consequence. In the beginning we have the Truth of
the Gods. The world is not subjective: it is, period. All that we know
is that things happen for God's will. A first paradigm shift is the
birth of natural science (the pre-Socratics), where man assumes the
ability to know the world "as it is". An "objective dream" that bears
immediately the "subject question". To what extent is it possible to
know objectively the world? What's the role of all that's not
objective? At this stage, here come the Humanists (like the Sophists)
focusing on all that objectivity can't observe: the self, humanity,
happiness, good. "Who am I" is the basic question (Socrates), that
society fears. As answer, objectivity supporters just delete all
that's subjective from their view as non-interesting or secondary
(Aristotle). And society thanks. Yet the problem is still there as
the "who am I" question is not secondary at all in a free world
where "I" decide my actions and pay the consequences (today). That's
why objective thinking is not equipped for the current intellectual
age. It can't tell me who I am. The MOQ, by dissolving the
subject/object split, helps us looking at the whole thing from a better
viewpoint.
Ciao....
.....A long "post scriptum":
I think the following excerpts from:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/protagor.htm
could help in understanding the incredible -for their times-
intellectual paradigm shift the Old Sophists tried.
Protagoras of Abdera was one of several fifth century Greek thinkers
(including also Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus) collectively known as
the Older Sophists, a group of TRAVELING TEACHERS OR INTELLECTUALS who
were experts in rhetoric (the science of oratory) and related subjects.
Protagoras is known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the
measure of all things (which is often interpreted as a sort of radical
relativism) (2) that he could make the "worse (or weaker) argument
appear the better (or stronger)" and (3) that one could not tell if the
gods existed or not. While some ancient sources claim that these
positions led to his having been tried for impiety in Athens and his
books burned, these stories may well have been later legends.
PROTAGORAS' NOTION THAT JUDGMENTS AND KNOWLEDGE ARE IN SOME
WAY
RELATIVE TO THE PERSON JUDGING OR KNOWING HAS BEEN VERY
INFLUENTIAL,
AND IS STILL WIDELY DISCUSSED IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY.
By the fourth century the [Sophist] term becomes more specialized,
limited to those who taught rhetoric, specifically the ability to speak
in assemblies or law courts. [...] Conventionally, the term "Older
Sophist" is restricted to a small number of figures known from the
Platonic dialogues (Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, Euthydemus,
Thrasymachus and sometimes others).
the Older Sophists themselves, [...] tended to agree with and follow
generally accepted moral codes, even while THEIR MORE ABSTRACT
SPECULATIONS UNDERMINED THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF
TRADITIONAL
MORALITY.
PROTAGORAS WAS PROBABLY THE FIRST GREEK TO EARN MONEY IN
HIGHER
EDUCATION and he was notorious for the extremely high fees he charged.
His teaching included such general areas as public speaking, criticism
of poetry, citizenship, and grammar. His teaching methods seemed to
consist primarily of lectures, including model orations, analyses of
poems, discussions of the meanings and correct uses of words, and
general rules of oratory.
Since Athenians had to represent themselves in court rather than hiring
lawyers, it was essential that rich men learn to speak well in order to
defend their property; [...] While this made the teachings of Protagoras
extremely valuable, IT ALSO LED A CERTAIN CONSERVATIVE FACTION (E.G.
THE COMIC PLAYWRIGHT ARISTOPHANES) TO DISTRUST HIM, IN THE SAME
WAY
THAT PEOPLE NOW MIGHT DISTRUST A SLICK LAWYER.
Protagoras himself was a fairly traditional and upright moralist. HE
MAY HAVE VIEWED HIS FORM OF RELATIVISM AS ESSENTIALLY
DEMOCRATIC
Protagoras' influence on the history of philosophy has been
significant. Historically, it was in response to Protagoras and his
fellow sophists that Plato began the search for transcendent forms or
knowledge which could somehow anchor moral judgment. ALONG WITH THE
OTHER OLDER SOPHISTS AND SOCRATES, PROTAGORAS WAS PART OF A
SHIFT IN
PHILOSOPHICAL FOCUS FROM THE EARLIER PRESOCRATIC TRADITION OF
NATURAL
PHILOSOPHY TO AN INTEREST IN HUMAN PHILOSOPHY. HE EMPHASIZED
HOW HUMAN
SUBJECTIVITY DETERMINES THE WAY WE UNDERSTAND, OR EVEN
CONSTRUCT, OUR
WORLD, A POSITION WHICH IS STILL AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE MODERN
PHILOSOPHIC TRADITION. .
ON GODS
SOPHISTIC THINKERS [...] POINTED OUT THE ABSURDITY AND IMMORALITY
OF THE
CONVENTIONAL EPIC ACCOUNTS OF THE GODS. Protagoras' prose treatise
about the gods began "Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing
whether they exist or not or of what sort they may be. Many things
prevent knowledge including the obscurity of the subject and the
brevity of human life." (DK80b4)
THE MAN-MEASURE STATEMENT
... Of Protagoras' ipsissima verba (actual words, as opposed to
paraphrases), the most famous is the homo-mensura (man-measure)
statement (DK80b1): "Of all things the measure is man, of the things
that are, that [or "how"] they are, and of things that are not, that
[or "how"] they are not." This precise meaning of this statement, like
that of any short extract taken out of context, is far from obvious,
although the long discussion of it in Plato's Theaetetus gives us some
sense of how ancient Greek audiences interpreted it. THE TEST CASE
NORMALLY USED IS TEMPERATURE. IF MS. X. SAYS "IT IS HOT," THEN THE
STATEMENT (UNLESS SHE IS LYING) IS TRUE FOR HER. ANOTHER PERSON,
MS. Y,
MAY SIMULTANEOUSLY CLAIM "IT IS COLD." THIS STATEMENT COULD ALSO
BE
TRUE FOR HER. If Ms. X normally lives in Alaska and Ms. Y in Florida,
the same temperature (e. g. 25 Celsius) may seem hot to one and cool to
the other. The measure of hotness or coldness is fairly obviously the
individual person. One cannot legitimately tell Ms. X she does not feel
hot -- she is the only person who can accurately report her own
perceptions or sensations. In this case, it is indeed impossible to
contradict as Protagoras is held to have said (DK80a19). But what if
Ms. Y, in claiming it feels cold, suggests that unless the heat is
turned on the pipes will freeze? One might suspect that she has a fever
and her judgment is unreliable; the measure may still be the individual
person, but it is an unreliable one, like a broken ruler or unbalanced
scale. IN A MODERN SCIENTIFIC CULTURE, WITH A PREDILECTION FOR
SCIENTIFIC SOLUTIONS, WE WOULD THINK OF CONSULTING A
THERMOMETER TO
DETERMINE THE OBJECTIVE TRUTH. THE GREEK RESPONSE WAS TO LOOK
AT THE
MORE PROFOUND PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS.
Even if the case of whether the pipes will freeze can be solved
trivially, the problem of it being simultaneously hot and cold to two
women remains interesting. If this cannot be resolved by determining
that one has a fever, we are presented with evidence that judgments
about qualities are subjective. If this is the case though, it has
alarming consequences. Abstractions like truth, beauty, justice, and
virtue are also qualities and it would seem that PROTAGORAS' DICTUM
WOULD LEAD US TO CONCLUDE THAT THEY TOO ARE RELATIVE TO THE
INDIVIDUAL
OBSERVER, A CONCLUSION WHICH MANY CONSERVATIVE ATHENIANS
FOUND ALARMING
BECAUSE OF ITS POTENTIAL SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES. If good and bad are
merely what seem good and bad to the individual observer, then how can
one claim that stealing or adultery or impiety or murder are somehow
wrong? Moreover, if something can seem both hot and cold (or good and
bad) then both claims, that the thing is hot and that the thing is
cold, can be argued for equally well. IF ADULTERY IS BOTH GOOD AND BAD
(GOOD FOR ONE PERSON AND BAD FOR ANOTHER), THEN ONE CAN
CONSTRUCT
EQUALLY VALID ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST ADULTERY IN GENERAL OR
AN
INDIVIDUAL ADULTERER. What will make a case triumph in court is not
some inherent worth of one side, but the persuasive artistry of the
orator.
Marco
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