From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 16 2004 - 02:51:09 BST
Dan,
I agree that there are similarities between Plotinus and Pirsig, but those
same similarities can be found in the Tao and in Whitehead. So when it
comes to picking the one "more similar" to Pirsig, I chose Whitehead only
because his philosophy would necessarily be in reaction to SOM, as is
Pirsig's, whereas the other two are not. Unfortunately, I am not familiar
enough with Whitehead to be all that secure in my judgment -- that there
may be greater differences between Whitehead and Pirsig that make the
top-down vs bottom-up metaphysics (Plotinus vs. Pirsig) difference not loom
so large.
- Scott
> [Original Message]
> From: Dan Glover <daneglover@hotmail.com>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Date: 8/15/2004 1:12:20 PM
> Subject: RE: MD Plotinus, Pirsig and Wilber
>
> Hello everyone
>
> >From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885@earthlink.net>
> >Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> >To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> >Subject: RE: MD Plotinus, Pirsig and Wilber
> >Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2004 22:22:59 -0600
> >
> >A major difference between Pirsig and Plotinus, is that the latter held
> >that the world emanated from Intellect (nous), via Soul, and our job is
to
> >make the return journey, whereas with Pirsig, there is only the upward
> >journey, with intellect something to be cast off. The Plotinian Intellect
> >plays approximately the same role as the MOQ's DQ, but since the MOQ sees
> >the intellect as only another level of static pattern, the two
philosophies
> >become very different. The MOQ is nominalist and empirical, while
> >neo-Platonism is neither.
>
> Hi Scott
>
> Yes there seem to be major differences between Plotinus and Robert Pirsig
> but I think the philosophies of each are similiar in many ways too. I've
> taken the liberty to cut and paste a couple of what I feel to be
pertinent
> sections from Plotinus' Six Enneads:
>
> From the Third Ennead:
>
> We are like people ignorant of painting who complain that the colours are
> not beautiful everywhere in the picture: but the Artist has laid on the
> appropriate tint to every spot. Or we are censuring a drama because the
> persons are not all heroes but include a servant and a rustic and some
> scurrilous clown; yet take away the low characters and the power of the
> drama is gone; these are part and parcel of it. (
> http://classics.mit.edu/Plotinus/enneads.3.third.html )
>
> Doesn't this remind you of the brujo in LILA? And how RMP says it's hard
to
> tell the degenerates from the Dynamic individuals that a society needs to
> survive and thrive?
>
> This section seems to especially pertain to Ant's viva voce question:
>
> There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One, whose
> nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend
themselves
> to proof. Upon The One follows immediately the Principle which is at once
> Being and the Intellectual-Principle. Third comes the Principle, Soul.
>
> The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not
> all things; all things are its possession- running back, so to speak, to
it-
> or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be.
>
> But a universe from an unbroken unity, in which there appears no
diversity,
> not even duality?
>
> It is precisely because that is nothing within the One that all things
are
> from it: in order that Being may be brought about, the source must be no
> Being but Being's generator, in what is to be thought of as the primal
act
> of generation. Seeking nothing, possessing nothing, lacking nothing, the
One
> is perfect and, in our metaphor, has overflowed, and its exuberance has
> produced the new: this product has turned again to its begetter and been
> filled and has become its contemplator and so an Intellectual-Principle.
(
> http://classics.mit.edu/Plotinus/enneads.5.fifth.html )
>
> Notice how Plotinus describes the One as nothing -- seeking nothing,
> possessing nothing, lacking nothing. Compare that to RMP describing
Dynamic
> Quality as equivilant to Buddhist nothingness. Also "its exuberance has
> produced the new" is very similiar to RMP's Dynamic Quality being new and
> always something of a surprise.
>
> Thank you for your comments,
>
> Dan
>
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