From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Jan 11 2003 - 04:55:50 GMT
Platt,
[Scott before:] Going further, I would raise this observation to a
metaphysical prime, by
> > saying that not only does this mutual dependence/contradiction describe
> > reality, it creates reality, and one can call this creative force
Quality.
>
[Platt:]> Binary language is secondary to pure experience which creates
reality.
> The "creative force" is better thought of as Dynamic Quality in the MoQ.
Here we disagree, but I haven't given my reasons for my position as yet
(actually, I did once, in a long post that got lost). Roughly, as I mention
in my post to Matt, I consider that it is better to think of all experience
is word-like, rather than thing-like or process-like. I come to this from
two sources, one is Barfield, who points out that in pre-intellectual
societies (in the state he calls "original participation") that which we
consider just "out there" was experienced as being in some sense alive, to
have a spirit "behind" it, and that the "it" (the sense-perceptible) was the
expression of that spirit. This is to say that we are now in a stage
intermediate between that stage and that of "final participation", wherein
(I'm sort of guessing) we can recover that expressivity with full intellect.
The other source is Peirce, who divided objects into what he called Firsts,
Seconds, and Thirds. An example of a First is "redness". A Second is "X acts
on Y", while a Third is "X perceives Y through Z", eg. on hearing a word.
Peirce points out that one cannot reduce a Third to a combination of Seconds
and/or Firsts. Yet there are clearly Thirds. So, to avoid dualism, one
concludes that Seconds and Firsts are in fact figments of our imagination.
(I hope I haven't butchered his argument too much. It's been a while.)
>
> > Also other things.
> >
> > The cash value of this metaphysical position is that (a) it requires
irony
> > (since one's logic is that of contradictory identity), and (b) it
completes
> > the linguistic turn.
>
> Cash value? I wouldn't bet my house on it. And what pray tell is "the
> linguistic turn?"
The linguistic turn is the claim made by a bunch of people like
Wittgenstein, and including Benjamin Whorf, whom Pirsig speaks approvingly
of, if I remember right, that what we know and how we act is largely
structured (how much is controversial) by our language. Analytic philosophy
is that which accepts this, and so turned to studying how we use words.
Post-modernism takes it further, by denying that there is anything to know
"outside the text" (an exaggeration, perhaps, but I'm only trying to stay in
the ballpark), while the analytic philosophers, by and large, still believed
in an independent, objective, reality towhich our verbiage can
asymptotically approach.
>
> > The absolutes that post-moderns have overthrown by the
> > recognition that everything comes contextualized may be restored by
> > focusing on contextualizations, or language in general.
>
> I'm sure you see the irony in claiming postmoderns have overthrown
> "the absolutes" by asserting another absolute--"everything comes
> contextualized." Again, contexts are derivative, a step down from the
> Quality of prime, pure experience.
Again, I disagree. Without a context, there is nothing. Pure experience does
not exist. DQ cannot be separated from SQ. Nirvana is samsara. God cannot
not create.
>
> >There is no truth
> > outside of a language game because everything is a play/player in a
> > language game (not restricted to human players). "In the beginning was
the
> > Logos" turns out to be a simple metaphysical fact.
>
> Two more absolute truths are asserted.
As I said long ago, and as Kevin has recently remarked similarly, because
there is no way to verify or deny a metaphysical statement by "checking out
the facts", then any metaphysical statement that I make should be considered
to be prefaced by some phrase like "I invite you to think that...". They are
not "statements of truth", absolute or not. They are proposals for a
restructuring of one's vocabulary.
In any case, as I say in my post to Matt, I accept metaphysical absolutes --
two of them, in fact. What I deny is that any sentence I write can
completely express them. Hence irony.
- Scott
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 : Sat Jan 11 2003 - 04:57:09 GMT