From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 07:49:37 GMT
Dear Matt K.,
You wrote 20/10 13:58 -0500:
'I don't think metaphysics is needed and ... metaphysics, by definition,
falls into an appearance-reality
distinction.'
I agree that the idea of a reality beyond experience is not needed, even if
it is a high quality idea according to the MoQ. The existence of reality
separate from individual experience is an idea with high value, because it
induces people to reconcile when iniatially expressing different ideas. Its
value is limited however, because it gives some people the idea that the
limited view their personal experience gives them of this reality justifies
absolute claims and induces them to cut themselves off from the views of
others (especially of those they criticize) and thus from some channels for
divine guidance/DQ.
The conventional definition of metaphysics you use as proof that metaphysics
implies this idea of a reality beyond experience is not the only possible
definition, so your proof is not sound.
I liked your previous definition, in your "little Intro to Philosophology"
of 31/5/01 11:21 -0700 much better:
"There are three branches of philosophology: epistemology, metaphysics, and
axiology.
Epistemology deals with the 'How do I know something?' questions.
Metaphysics deals with the 'What is reality?' questions.
Axiology is a little known word that formalises the question of 'What has
value?'.
And there you are, the three key words to philosophology that clue you in to
what kind of philosophology you are doing: know, reality, and value.
The beautiful thing that Pirsig did was make axiology and metaphysics the
same thing. Value is reality"'
I argued 17/8/01 23:49 +0200 that Pirsig used the term "metaphysics" in a
broader sense, incorporating all three of your branches of philosophology
(and used the denigrating expression "philosophology" in yet another sense,
but is another story).
I built on that by saying (in that 17/8/01 post) that I would prefer to
speak of metaphysics = epistemology + ontology + deontology or
"How do we know?", "What can we know?" and "How do we know what we should
do?".
Pirsig made "value" (or "quality") the basic concept of his ontology
suggesting that his epistemology ("How do
we know?", "By experiencing value!") was at the same time a deontology,
thereby implying that his ontology was at the same time an (objective)
ethics ("What should we do?") I don't agree with Pirsig's (suggestion of a)
identification of epistemology and deontology. I think a deontology needs to
say something about the concept of "Meaning".
When Marco 26/11/01 18:49 +0100 criticized my use of the term 'deontology',
I substituted it 27/11/01 14:09 +0100 with 'meta-ethics':
'Summarizing my MoQ: we experience (epistemology) quality (ontology) and
seek Meaning (meta-ethics).
Summarizing Pirsig's MoQ: we experience quality and only history will show
whether we chose to be a savior or a degenerate. In other words: Pirsig's
answer to "How can we know what we should do?" is "You can't". He literally
says in chapter 17 of "Lila":
"you can't really say whether a specific change is evolutionary at the time
it occurs".'
I agree that a formalized metaphysics is not needed. It can help us sort out
communication that gets stuck because of implicit answers to
epistemological, ontological and meta-ethical questions however. Implicit
answers to these questions ARE inevitable if we want to communicate with
others, don't you think. In that sense we can't do without an -implicit-
metaphysics.
I agree that the conventional understanding of metaphysics (because it is a
SOM?) answers 'What can we know?' with 'ultimate reality beyond experience'.
The MoQ substitutes this with 'experience/value is the only ultimate
reality': 'experience' = 'reality' = 'ultimate reality' and 'ultimate' is
indeed superfluous.
You wrote 20/10 13:58 -0500:
'In Pirsig, we can't correspond to Quality because it's not defined and
never can be defined.'
Yes, but he goes on to split Quality in Dynamic Quality and static quality.
If we apply Scott/Nishida's 'logic of contradictory identity' we can say
that Quality is BOTH undefinable (as DQ) AND definable (as sq). Metaphysics
then becomes
NOT about correspondence of subjective reality with ultimate/objective
reality,
BUT about correspondence of the different types of sq and the patterns we
recognize in them with each other
AND -given the impossibility of their 'correspondence' with undefinable DQ-
about the metaphors and paradoxes we can use to communicate our insights in
the relation between DQ and sq.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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