From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Sun Feb 06 2005 - 05:10:58 GMT
DMB,
Scott said to dmb:
Since Plato and Plotinus felt that the "way" was through the intellect to
Intellect, while the Romantics (and James) tended to disparage the
intellect, as Pirsig does (with respect to spiritual advancement), I wonder
how you can claim this. (That Pirsig's mysticism is descended from Plato and
Plotinus, from the East, from Native American mysticism, but not from the
Modern Romantics.)
dmb says:
I'm truely baffled as to why you persist in this error. I don't know of any
kind of mystic who says the mystical truth can be apprehended through
intellect. It contradicts the most basic assertion of philosophical
mysticism and, as I've pointed out, directly to you at least a half a dozen
times, Plointus says the same thing as Pirsig on this point. Please, do me a
favor. Don't ignore it again. Look. Its right in front of your eyes...
Scott:
And you ignore what I have said. I have never denied that mysticism goes
back to the beginning of Western thought. I have never said that Plotinus
was not a mystic. (Whether Plato was is a matter of debate. I think he was.)
I have never denied that Plotinus said that the One is ineffable (but that's
hardly unique to mystics: the ultimate ineffability of God has been standard
theistic doctrine since the beginning of theism, after all). What I have
been saying is that Plotinus' metaphysics says that the first emanation from
the One is Intellect (nous), and that the way of the seeker toward the One
is to build up their intellect -- he recommends studying mathematics and
then dialectic in order to move oneself to union with Intellect from
which -- since it is the first emanation -- one can contemplate the One.
And I will add that Merrell-Wolff is a modern mystic who also recommends
studying philosophy and mathematics. Neither M-W nor Plotinus say that one
can capture mystical truth in a thought or in a mathematical formula. They
are saying that the way (or rather one way), is to purify the intellect by
exercising it.
Now here's Pirsig [Lila, Ch. 5]:
"Mystics will tell you that once you've opened the door to metaphysics you
can say goodbye to any genuine understanding of reality. Thought is not a
path to reality. It sets obstacles in that path because when you try to use
thought to approach that which is prior to thought your thinking does carry
you toward that something. It carries you *away* from it."
Pirsig's attitude toward thought vis-avis a "genuine understanding of
reality" is what you will find in Schleiermacher and James, but not in
Plotinus or Plato. Pirsig and Plotinus are the same insofar as they both
hold that discursive thought cannot capture ultimate truth, (but as far as
that goes, Pirsig is the same as Aquinas, Calvin, and the Pope), but they
differ vastly in their metaphysics and their attitude toward intellect. In
the latter case, Pirsig is like Shleiermacher and James, not like Plotinus
or Plato.
- Scott
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