From: Patrick van den Berg (cirandar@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 13:56:24 BST
Hi Sriram,
> that his son was killed or even if he was a card-carrying Nazi has
> nothing
> whatsoever to do with the truth or falsehood of his ideas. It is
> logically
> irrelevent.
It might be logically irrelevant, but what has logic to do with a
metaphysics of value?! I just looked up a quote from William James (The
Principles): "There is no more contemptible type of human character than
that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life in
a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion, but who never does a manly
concrete deed. Rousseau, inflaming all the mothers of France, by his
eloquence, to follow Nature and nurse their babies themselves, while he
sends his own children to the foundling hospital, is the classical
example of what I mean."
Although James talks about dreaming and living in a 'weltering sea of
sensibility and emotion', I think the example of Rousseau is relevant
here: I think that quite some philosophers contemplate all kind of
wondreous things and systems, but nevertheless are cracks (or worse, as
in the example you give above) in their daily lives.
About Pirsig, why does he write a (dramatized) autobiography in his
books, around his metaphysics?
A metaphysics has to be pragmatic, not just some intellectual
dreamcastle where you can escape to from life in the open, so to say.
Greetings, Patrick.
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com
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 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 10:37:57 GMT