From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Tue Aug 17 2004 - 14:13:04 BST
On 15 Aug 2004 at 4:05, hampday@earthlink.net wrote to msh:
msh said:
In response to Ham's contention that his concept of Immanent Essence
is an original metaphysical contribution, I pasted his thesis into
my word processor and replaced "Immanent Essence" with "Dynamic
Quality"; I also replaced the single word "immanent" with "dynamic"
and the single word "Essence" with "Quality." For those of us
familiar with the MOQ, this results in NO significant change in
meaning. I invite others to perform the same replacement and see if
they agree.
ham:
That's a fascinating way to analyze a thesis, and it avoids having to
read it for the meaning intended.
msh says:
You misunderstand. The substitution came AFTER I'd read and analysed
your thesis, and realized the startling similarity to the MOQ. This
similarity should not surprise you, as Pirsig himself remarked on it.
Also, there is fine precedent for this substitution method of
metaphysical analysis: Phaedrus does it near the end of ZMM. He
reads the Tao Te Ching, substituting his word "Quality" for "Tao"
throughout, discovering a perfect correlation. Quality is the Tao.
Unfortunately, you didn't read that far. :-)
------------------------
Ant Mcwatt comments:
Reading this debate of Ham’s and Mark H’s the first issue that sruck me was F.S.C. Northrop’s caution against presuming that identical terms in different philosophical systems necessarily have the same meaning. For instance, the term ‘value’ for Ham (taking an SOM viewpoint?) refers to an internal mental states (as distinct from an external physical reality) while ‘Value’ for Mark H (taking an MOQ or Buddhist viewpoint) refers to all apprehended factors (whether physical or mental) given in immediate awareness.
‘The philosophically important thing about any common-sense term as it enters into any philosophical theory is not its bare dictionary meaning, but the particular contextual meaning usually unique to the philosophical system in question. Philosophical materialists, idealists, dualists and neutral monists all admit the existence of what common sense denotes by the term “mind,” yet there is all the difference in the world in the ways in which they analyze and conceive of this datum.’ (Northrop, 1947, p.80)
ie. It's not the terms that are so important but what they actually refer to in context of the particular philosophical (or scientific) system that they form part of. It is therefore apparent that “Essence” in Ham’s system is more or less the equivalent of Quality in the MOQ’s. Ham seems to be speaking of the "Perenial" philosophy (of which Taoism and the MOQ are examples) though I’ll have to finish reading his Essentialist webpage to ascertain the exact sinilarities and differences between his system and the MOQ’s.
As far as teleology is concerned, the MOQ indicates that there is no pre-set plan or purpose to evolution other than the continual response of static patterns to an undefined betterness i.e. Dynamic Quality.
Finally, I note Platt said to Mark H in reference to a quote in their discussion of teleology recently: “You're quoting McWatt, not Pirsig. You're losing it!”
Possibly so, Sophie and Snowball who work very closely with Mark have been keeping me up-to-date with his strange behaviour recently. However, I believe Platt was the first person on MOQ Discuss to confuse a quote of mine’s with Pirsig’s (in 2002) so Mark won't be on his own if he is indeed admitted to the "Karl Marx Home for MOQ Philosophers who have lost it". :-)
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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