From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Nov 10 2004 - 02:36:47 GMT
Ham,
[Ham prev] > > Isn't Quality also an aspect of
> > > objects perceived?
> >
> Scott replied:
> > That's the pre-MOQ view. The MOQ changes this to say that Quality is
what
> > produces the perceived object (and the perceiving subject)....
>
[Ham} > Is it your understanding, then, that Quality is pre-conditional,
> transcendent, and uncreated? Does Quality presume a prior cause that
isn't
> cited in the MOQ, or is it a *causa sui* (self-generated) entity? And why
> isn't such essential information provided by the author?
[Scott:] Pirsig says (Lila, Ch. 5):
"What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this separate category,
Quality, and show how it contains subjects and objects. The Metaphysics of
Quality would show how things become enormously more coherent --
*fabulously* more coherent -- when you start with an assumption that
Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world."
So, strictly speaking, there could be some non-empirical Who-Knows-What
prior to Quality, but since Pirsig wishes to stick to an empirical
metaphysics, his position is that Quality is as deep as one can go. To ask
if it is "pre-conditional, transcendent, and uncreated" is to add a bunch
of empirically unanswerable, and unnecessary, questions. (I am trying to
stick to Pirsig's view. Mine is somewhat different, but that is neither
here nor there.)
So if you say that a metaphysics must determine that which is
pre-conditional, transcendental, uncreated, etc., I imagine that Pirsig
would reply that that is a metaphysical criterion that he doesn't share.
That is, yours and his are different metaphysics, that to claim that his is
not metaphysics comes about by your defining metaphysics the way you do.
- Scott
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