From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 13 2005 - 17:57:58 GMT
Hi Dan,
I've changed the name of the thread, as I think this needs to stand
separately to the 'pure experience' bit.
> Ontologically speaking, experience is never direct. We derive static
> quality patterns of value Dynamically, now, but we experience by
> remembering the moment past. If you read carefully, you'll note that
> Anthony doesn't actually say mind and matter are identical; he says they
> can be perceived as identical....
As I understand it, even claiming this is enough to remain within the
Cartesian theatre (which we all agree is the greatest sin possible). In
other words, the issue is treating mind and matter along parallel lines,
however complex the metaphysical framework surrounding them (and however
distinct they are then made).
As I'm in the mood for quoting things, here's one from PMS Hacker, in
"Wittgenstein's place in twentieth-century analytical philosophy", p131:
"...many twentieth century materialists, vehemently repudiating the
Cartesian conception of the mind as a spiritual substance, retained the
fundamental logical structures attributed to psychological concepts by the
dualist picture, simply substituting the brain for mental substance, grey
glutinous matter for ethereal stuff."
[Here it seems we could substitute 'intellectual patterns of quality' for
'grey glutinous matter']
Hacker goes on:
"Wittgenstein's originality manifested itself here with no less vividness
than in the domains of philosophy of logic, language and mathematics. Here,
too, he questioned the framework of the centuries old debate, holding that
philosophers do not place the question marks deep enough down. What should
be challenged is the inner/outer picture of the mind, the conception of the
mental as a 'world' accessible to its subject by introspection, the
conception of introspection as an analogue of perception, the idea that the
capacity to say how things are with us is a form of knowledge, the notion
that human behaviour is 'bare bodily movement', the thought that voluntary
action is bodily movement caused by acts of will, the supposition that
explanation of human behaviour in terms of reasons and motives is causal,
and the pervasive influence of the Augustinian picture of language which
inclines us to think that psychological expressions are uniformly or
typically names of mental objects, states, events and processes. In the
Investigations and in subsequent writings, Wittgenstein dismantled the very
structure of received thought about philosophical psychology, reassembling
the familiar components constituted by our manifold uses of psychological
expressions in a surveyable representation of the grammar of the mental and
its behavioural expression."
Thing is, when Pirsig says that the physical and biological levels
correspond to the 'objective' part of SOM, and the social and intellectual
to the 'subjective' part, he seems to be reproducing precisely the
'fundamental logical structures' of Cartesianism. And Ant's comments in his
thesis seemed to support that interpretation of Pirsig. Which is why I'm now
offering up this question.
I should emphasise that I haven't fully absorbed all of what Wittgenstein
has to say on the subject (it's his understanding of religion that I have
most explored) but as I have slowly worked my way into it, the tensions
between his insights and the MoQ become more and more pressing. And I find
conversation a useful way of discovering truth. I learn things from the
conversations here. I suppose what I'm doing is trying to find out where
Antony places Pirsig vis-a-vis the Wittgensteinian approach. There are lots
of areas where they seem to be parallel, but also some where they seem to
contradict each other. This seems one of the latter, and worth exploring.
Sam
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