From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Aug 14 2004 - 01:00:23 BST
Ham,
> Yes, I now recall reading of that incident. Doesn't it seem rather
> arbitrary on the author's part to have chosen the pivotal term for his
> philosophy on the basis of what could almost be regarded as sentiment?
> Inasmuch as he often speaks of Value in the same context, what is there
> about Quality that makes it the preferred operative term? Value is
> universally comprehensible as "something to be desired", while Quality is
> more typically used in the sense of "grading" a thing -- e.g., its
> workmanship, reliability, integrity, efficiency, etc.-- thus putting it in
> the SOM category.
Well, what Pirsig was after was to "get at" that sense, that we do grade
things, and his result was to say that that grading is not just subjective.
In any case, I've learned to accept whatever word or words a philosopher
uses. In a post a little while back I mentioned that Nicholas of Cusa and
Coleridge both expressed the same distinction between two levels of
intelligence, but one used the same two words ('reason' and 'understanding'
-- or their Latin equivalents on Cusa's part) in the opposite roles that
the other did. Not a problem. The situation is worse with words in
discussion of consciousness -- or should it be awareness, or experience,
etc.
My view is that there are many names of Emptiness: Quality, Value,
Awareness, Reason (in Coleridge's usage -- Intellectus in Cusa's), Love,
Creativity, etc. None, of course, are complete.
>
> But why should his readers have to pour through all this narrative to get
at
> these "separated parts"? The fiction is well written and entertaining,
and
> it is obvious that the author has an acute grasp of his fascinating
> metaphysical concept. Why has he not taken the time to publish at least
one
> volume or tract on the central thesis itself, as virtually every other
> philospher has done?
Why didn't Plato or Plotinus, etc. One guess for Pirsig's style is that he
thought it would reach a wider audience doing it his way. And he was right.
Philosophy shouldn't be just for those who can plow their way through Hegel.
> t> A minor point: The Pseudo-Dionysius would seem to me to take the honor
of
> > first, or at least earlier than Eckhart, theologian to speak of what is
> > beyond being and existence.
>
> I would give it to Plotinus, whose ontology is more comprehensive and who
> predates Dionysius by six centuries.
But if you're allowing non-Judeo/Christian/Muslims to be theologians, maybe
we should go with Heraclitus. (By the way, Plotinus predates P-D by two or
three centuries (more sticklering, sorry)).
> > The question: Do you consider the Patriot Act to be a help or a
hindrance
> > to freedom?
>
> The answer depends on whether you believe (as I do) that our nation is
under
> attack and that we are currently at war with the terrorist factions. When
> Franklin Roosevelt placed thousands of Japanese and European citizens into
> internment camps following Pearl Harbor, I remember people shaking their
> heads and saying "how awful to have to take these measures!" But they
> didn't question the advisability of it, and this temporary restriction of
> personal freedom was not condemned (at the time) by the Civil Liberties
> Union. We were at war, and the security of our Nation (and the Freedom we
> stood for) called for extreme caution. The only difference today is that
> cynics like yourself no longer believe what Government tells them, hence
> convince themselves that it's all a ploy by the politicians to win votes.
> Unfortunately, the cynicism that prevents our seeing objective reality as
it
> is won't make the terrorist threat go away.
>
> I haven't researched details of the U.S.A. Patriot Act which, as I
> understand it, was designed to facilitate more effective communication
> between the law enforcement agencies where terrorism is involved. It
seems
> to me that, considering the circumstances, the American community must be
> willing to give up certain civil liberties (including the right of
> foreigners to enter our borders) in the interest of preserving Freedom for
> all, just as a child must be deprived of certain liberties in order to
learn
> how to exercise personal Freedom responsibly in a free society.
Well, if I am a cynic (and I probably am), it comes from noting that a few
decades after the internment of Japanese Americans, the government had to
'fess up that (a) it violated their freedom, and (b) was unnecessary, that
there hadn't really been a threat. Nor is it the only time that public
hysteria, largely caused by the press, has resulted in a lot of freedom
violations, such as Debs' imprisonment in WW1, and the anti-Bolshevist acts
after WW1 (basically used to dump on labor unions), and of course the
McCarthy era. It is too easy for a government to violate civil rights under
the name of danger to the commonwealth. These are classic cases of social
values overriding intellectual ones. In all these cases, the danger was
grossly exaggerated, so yes, I am inclined to not trust those in power. In
the 70's, after revelations that the government had been spying on 1000's
of U.S citizens, a bunch of checks were put into place to prevent that. The
Patriot Act removes them.
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries -
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 Aug 14 2004 - 01:24:19 BST