Re: MD Pirsig a nominalist?

From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 02 2004 - 18:49:26 BST

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    Hi Scott

    One tactical reason for this possible slant is
    that a lot of what Pirsig is about is saying we
    don't have to accept the concepts of SOM
    & can see things via a different schema.

    regards DM

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885@earthlink.net>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 12:59 AM
    Subject: Re: MD Pirsig a nominalist?

    > David M,
    >
    > > [Scott prev]:
    > > Pirsig's attitude toward intellect derives from nominalism and
    > > the empirical tradition
    > >
    > >
    > > DM: no, Pirsig does not start with the particular,
    > > he starts with holistic quality, and then applies
    > > SQ/DQ to start understanding experience,
    > > could you have any more universal concepts?
    >
    > Well, Paul got me to correct myself when I called Pirsig a nominalist, so
    I
    > wish to point out that I didn't quite do so here in my statement above.
    > However, I would maintain that the general nominalist bias of modernism
    has
    > had an influence on Pirsig.
    >
    > The fact that Pirsig uses concepts, universal or no, to build his
    > metaphysics, is beside the point on whether one is a nominalist. You can't
    > do otherwise. A nominalist is one who says all concepts are "just words",
    > that all that is are pre-linguistic particulars. (A "universalist" as a
    > non-nominalist, BTW, is not referring to the universality of concepts in
    > the sense that they are all-pervading. In the controversy, any concept,
    > like horseness, is called a universal.) There are several points in LILA
    > where Pirsig makes "just words" sort of comments, which I have pointed out
    > many times.
    >
    > Now as Paul pointed out, strictly speaking, Pirsig escapes the nominalist
    > charge because at the intellectual level, the concept must be treated as a
    > real thing, not reducible to biologic or inorganic SPOV. So my adjusted
    > charge is that in calling DQ pre-intellectual, Pirsig is continuing a
    > modern trend of treating the intellectual as only a derived level in the
    > great scheme of things. Or to put it another way, by seeing intellect as
    > sitting on top of the other levels, rather than as underpinning all
    levels,
    > Pirsig continues to be in the modern tradition, which is largely
    nominalist
    > and empiricist. He assumes that thinking is something that is done once
    one
    > has gathered particulars, and is a matter of abstracting from particulars.
    > This ignores the problem that without universals there are no particulars
    > to begin with.
    >
    > - Scott
    >
    >
    >
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