From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 17 2002 - 02:45:49 GMT
DMB, Sam, all
The Sophists are a pet project of mine, so I was hoping the conversation
might drag through some territory I questioned earlier.
A long time ago (August), I fuzzied the distinction between the Social and
Intellectual levels using the "mythos over logos" argument from ZMM (Mon
Aug 05 2002 - 00:15:01 BST). Under most people's readings (Bo's, for one),
dialectic/logos represents the beginning of the Intellectual level. The
Sophists were operating at the Social level and Socrates and Plato created
the Intellectual level by placing Truth as more important than the Good.
Pirsig, however, says that dialectic is emergent out of rhetoric. Following
Pirsig's recapitulation of the mythos-over-logos argument, if logos is
believed to be emergent from the mythos, then the change between the levels
is not discrete. As Pirsig says in one of his annotations, there needs to
be a sharp break between Society and Intellect. The mythos-over-logos
argument is the contention that logos is emergent from mythos and that
symbols used in rational argumentation (the logos) can be broken down and
found in the Society's former mythos. And, as Pirsig says, the logos really
just becomes the new mythos. A continuation, possibly in a different
direction, but still a continuation, not a sharp, discrete break. This is
why, by the end of ZMM, Pirsig favored the Sophists, not the Socratics.
Bo replied to this line of thought by disavowing ZMM: "The
'mythos/logos/new mythos' aegument [sic] is from ZMM and not to be found in
LILA."
I think any moves for continuity between ZMM and Lila have to deal with
this problem. You, DMB, have begun to move the two books into a single
voice. On this issue, however, you quote Pirsig as appropriating the
mythos-over-logos argument for his cause. He doesn't see a problem with
retaining a discrete break and having the logos emergent out of mythos.
Indeed, there isn't a problem with emergence. Its when the
mythos-over-logos argument continues by saying, "Thus, logos is simply a
continuation of the mythos," that a problem emerges. Pirsig says in ZMM:
"The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is shaped by
these legends [the mythos], that our knowledge today is in relation to
these legends as a tree is in relation to the little shrub it once was.
One can gain great insights into the complex overall structure of the tree
by studying the much simpler shape of the shrub. There's no difference in
kind or even difference in identity, only a difference in size." (Ch 28)
This last line is the kicker: "no difference in kind or even difference in
identity." This does not lend itself to an interpretation of a discrete
break between Social and Intellectual levels. The break between the
Inorganic and Biological and Biological and Social/Intellectual are much
more obviously discrete. There does seem to be good reason to say that
there is a difference in kind and identity. But the mythos-over-logos
argument is the argument for continuity between Reason and Myth, logos and
mythos, dialectic and rhetoric. So, while it may be true that "social
level myths and intellectual level metaphysics can both refer to the ONE,"
unless you can answer this dilemma, the reason may be that myths and
metaphysics both refer to the ONE because metaphysics is continuous with myth.
Matt
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