From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Aug 31 2004 - 17:07:17 BST
DMB et al,
> dmb answers:
> I can see how a person can conclude that Pirsig and Plotinus are at odds,
> but would again insist that this conclusion is based on a misreading of
the
> terms. As F.S.C. Northrop put it, "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." And actually the quote
> you've provided shows that Plotinus is using words like "thought" and
> "intellect" in a way that is completely different from Pirsig.
[Scott:] Of course they are, because for Plotinus thought was something
primordial, while for Pirsig thought was something derived. And that is the
big difference between the two. For they are not talking about two
different things, like apples versus marriages, but both are referring to
thinking. One calls our thinking a finite, temporal shadow of a divine
thinking that exists outisde of time, while the other calls our thinking a
static pattern of values created in time. Hence Plotinus can call life a
form of thought, but Pirsig cannot, since for Pirsig life preceded thought.
Hence Borchert is misinterpreting Plotinus by replacing "Reason-Principle"
with "Creative Spirit". The latter could be anything (like DQ or God),
while the former specifically ties creativity with reason. This is
impossible in Pirsig's metaphysics, so the two systems (Plotinus's and
Pirsig's) are not different menus of the same underlying realities. The two
systems point to two different realities.
But notice
> how Plotinus is saying there are different levels of thought, namely
> vegetative, sensitive and psychic. In Pirsig's terms, he's talking about
the
> levels of static patterns, an evolutionary hierarchy, not just
intellectual
> patterns. Again, as Borchet puts it, "Plotinus did not have this
terminolgy
> at his disposal".
[Scott:] True, that Plotinus did not this terminology, but this terminology
is used to present a different metaphysics than Plotinus's, not the same in
different terms. Both Pirsig and Whitehead operated in reaction to SOM, and
in compliance with the evolutionary mindset developed in the 19th century,
while Plotinus did not. The fact that both Pirsig and Plotinus thought in
terms of levels is of secondary importance to the difference that Plotinus
thought of time as an unfolding of eternity while Pirsig (and Whitehead)
treat time as basic. This means that for Plotinus, the "superior" level
comes ontologically before the "inferior", while for Pirsig and Whitehead
it comes after. For Pirsig and Whitehead, the present moment is the point
at which something (DQ for Pirsig, God for Whitehead) makes something new
out of past stuff. For Plotinus (and all pre-modern philosophers in the
Platonic tradition) the present is more of a finite window into the
non-temporal reality.
But notice how Plotinus says "every life is some form of
> thought." In Pirsigian terms, I think he's saying that each level of
reality
> is a form of consciousness so that even subatomic particales can express a
> preference or a chair is a moral order. When we look through the terms as
if
> they were transparent and see the ideas they are meant to depict, we then
> see that Pirsig and Plotinus share the same vision of reality.
[Scott: ]Their visions of reality are very different. See above.
>
> Scott also said:
> I think Borchert and Wilber, based on the quotes you gave, wish to make
> Plotinus fit the modern ideas people have of mysticism, which are
> unfortunately shared by Pirsig. They are, I think, trying to disassociate
> mysticism from philosophy and theology,.. ...Now the modern mystical
> interpreter wishes to re-endow nature with something God-like, which is
> legitimate, but having forgotten, or misinterpreted the ancients (as I
> think Borchert is doing -- notice the use of the phrase "creative Spirit"
> and not "Intellect" or "Reason-Principle"), can think only of something
> "undifferentiated" or "pre-intellectual" behind it all.
>
> dmb replies:
> Hmmm. Its not at all clear what you're trying to say here, but let me
make a
> few points about the modern, or rather post-modern, interpreters of
> mysticism, particularly Pirsig and Wilber, who say essentially the same
> thing. Both of them attack modernity's scientific materialism for the same
> reasons, at least two of which are addressed and corrected by adopting and
> integrating the perennial philosophy. As sketched out above, the first
task
> is to correct modernity's view that intellect is disconnected to the rest
of
> reality, that it was born without parents, as Pirsig puts it. The MOQ's
> solution is to show that the intellectual levels has a "matter-of-fact
> evolutionary relationship" with its parent and the rest of static reality.
> This view already existed in the perennial philosophy and in all the world
> great religions.
[Scott:] No. Pirsig's attitude toward intellect derives from nominalism and
the empirical tradition, that is, only in the last 500 years or so. The
idea of placing intellect within an evolutionary relationship is only about
150 years old. Not part of the perennial philosophy at all. Before the
modern period, change was considered regressive, a descent from the Golden
Age. The physical was an inferior copy made from the intellectual.
This is where the levels come into it, in Plotinus, in
> Wilber and in Pirsig. The other major problem with modernity's
materialism,
> which Pirsig call SOM and Wilber calls flatland, is that it denies the
> validity of mystical experience as anything more than a merely subjective
> hallucination. Both of them integrate the perennial philosophy's mysticism
> by expanding the idea of empiricism and including the mystical experience
as
> a valid experience. Wilber's approach can even be called psychological and
> is based on heaps and heaps of scientific data, and yet it recognizes the
> validity of mysticism. And as I understand it, neither of them have done
> anything to misinterpret the ancients, but are in fact correcting the
> misinterpretations committed by scientific materialism, which has
basically
> thrown out the wisdom of the ages. Their idea was to rid the world of
> irrational superstitions and such, and this is a very good thing in light
of
> the Inquistions and holy wars and such, but they created a spiritually
> empty, soulless world in the process. Guys like Wilber and Pirsig are
trying
> to fix that in a way that does not revert to bible-babble or other social
> level stuff.
[Scott:] Yes, the re-acknowledging of the mystical is a Good Thing, but
that is not the question here, which was: is Pirsig's philosophy more like
Plotinus, the Tao, or Whitehead? I don't know enough about the Tao as a
philosophical system, so I am not going to contradict Pirsig's answer to
the question (the Tao). So my claim is that as metaphysical systems go,
Pirsig is more like Whitehead than Plotinus, for the reasons given above.
So while one might say that both Pirsig and Plotinus are Perennial
Philosophers, they are very different metaphysicians.
- Scott
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