From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 14:56:48 BST
Hi Sam:
> I think that it would be commonly accepted that being 'intellectual'
> centres upon an ability to employ reason and logic: an intellectual is a
> prominent member of the 'Church of Reason'. Much of what Pirsig has to say
> supports this, especially when he is describing the twentieth century as
> the revolution towards intellectual dominance, and science as the exemplary
> intellectual pattern. It would seem reasonable for the common understanding
> of 'intellectual' to reflect the dominant patterns of scientific and
> post-enlightenment thinking, that have had such a profound influence on our
> societies in the last two hundred years.
>
> Lastly, if Bo is right with his SOLAQI thesis, then the intellect IS
> subject-object logic, and the metaphysical and scientific systems that flow
> from it. Pirsig seems to offer support to this when he talks of 'the day
> Socrates died to establish the independence of intellectual patterns from
> their social origins'.
>
> To my way of thinking, talk of 'intellectual' is inevitably talk of SOM
> thinking - because that is what the intellectual level has been. It IS the
> western tradition that we have been discussing in other threads. Pirsig
> writes: "it should be stated at this point that the MoQ *supports* this
> dominance of intellect over society.. Having said this, the MoQ goes on to
> say that science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to take
> over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-object science
> has no provision for morals." This is the 'static' intellect that the
> hippies rebelled against. It is 'square' thinking _par excellence_.
Just wanted to jump in quickly to say I think this is the best description
of "intellect" that I've seen in a long time. Also, you make an excellent
case for emphasizing the individual aspect of the intellectual level. I
wouldn't go so far as to rename the level because to my mind
"individual" is implicit in intellectual, i.e., there's no such thing as a
"collective mind." Once that was understood by philosophers of the
enlightenment, the intellectual level flourished. A favorite passage of
mine from John Stuart Mill makes the point:
"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were
of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing
that one person that he, if he had the power, would be justified in
silencing mankind."
Part of the appeal of socialism and communism among intellectuals
can be attributed to SOM science which encourages a collectivist
outlook by focusing on processes and systems, ignoring individuals.
System theory, chaos theory, emergent theory, probability theory and
all the rest could care less what happens to a solitary entity.
So I have a great deal of sympathy for your proposal, so much so that
I'm at least half convinced of it. I'll be interested in other's views.
Platt
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