From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Thu Mar 24 2005 - 05:51:08 GMT
Scott:
By using the term "second-hand" in reference to Merrell-Wolff's mystical
experience, I meant to imply that it would be second-hand for anyone else
attempting to construct an ontology based on it. I have not read enough of
Wolff to know what his ontology is, if he has one. Most mystics tend to
speak in metaphors anyway, which is why I've steered away from Eastern
philosophy. I do think the Eastern mystics have a more intuitive sense of
the Oneness of reality, but it's not a concept that is easily explained in
logical dialectic. Do you remember Chin's Buddhistic ramblings last year?
(Whatever happened to Chin, by the way?) That kind of "literary
boilerplate" on philosophy, as currently exemplified in Matt's postings, is
what I believe Mr. Pirsig meant by Philosophology -- the practice of writing
about philosophy without actually participating in it. Like the
musicologists who write about music without creating it. (Deems Taylor was
an exception.)
Ham said:
> You seem to be using "contradictory identity" as a metaphor for the
polarity
> of differentiated existence. (If there's more to your concept, you'll
have
> to enlighten me.)
Scott:
> I use it for that polarity (N.b., Coleridge used "polarity" more or less
the
> same way that I use "contradictory identity"), but also, and I think more
> importantly, for the polarity between the undifferentiated and the
> differentiated. And I don't see it as especially metaphorical.
Contradictory (i.e. contrarity) may not be metaphorical, but it does suggest
that the essence of reality is in constant conflict with itself. I prefer
the more rational concept of "difference" which, like the Chinese Yin and
Yang, begins with the duality of "self" and "other" and extends to the
multi-differentiated processes of finitude.
Scott:
> If I deny that the former (process) is derived from the latter
> (absolute/static reality) (or vice versa) does that make mine a different
> ontology, or no longer an ontology?
What makes it an ontology is starting with a primary source. For Aristotle
it was "the science of the essence of things". Prior to Kant, ontology was
the theory of "being" AS being. Following Kant's ontological argument for
God -- "the greater than which nothing can be thought" -- it tended to be
theistic. But the concept of an a priori source has always been implicit in
ontology and is what distinguishes it from epistemology, which is usually
considered to be the theory of the acquisition of knowledge.
Now here's where you and I may part company, so tread carefully. If your
theory denies that process and multiplicity derive from constancy and
oneness, then either you must have a "prior cause" in mind or [IMO] you have
no ontology. In that case, you will lose me but retain the company of MoQ
which likewise has no ontology and leaves its epistemology to the
speculation of its followers.
> Scott said:
> That option [unification] is rejected in the third horn
> of the tetralemma ("not essence and existence").
> --snip--
> First horn: not essence
> Second horn: not existence
> Third horn: not essence and existence
> Fourth horn: not neither essence nor existence
That rules out just about anything, doesn't it? Or, does it imply that the
inverse is true? Suppose we invert your truth table as follows:
First horn: essence
Second horn: existence
Third horn: essence and existence
Fourth horn: not essence nor existence
What are we trying to prove here -- that reality is essentially everything
and nothing at the same time? I'm holding out for the more rational thesis,
based on Cusa's concept, that existence is not Essence but 'is not anything
other than' Essence. (Mayhaps you and I are positing the same essence, but
I don't know that yet.)
Unless you are rejecting a primary source, I don't follow your meaning of "a
Somewhat" here:
> I just think
> one can turn the screw one more time and not assume a Somewhat (in your
> case, Essence, in the MOQ, DQ, or the "undifferentiated aesthetic
continuum"
> of Northrop) prior to its negation.
>
> So you are presupposing an undifferentiated source (like the MOQ does).
> This is one place I differ from the MOQ, in that I think the
> undifferentiated/differentiated to be a contradictory identity, and hence
> one should not be privileged over the other.
But are you rejecting a primary source? That is the real question. (And
please don't tell me it's Quality.)
> I hold that "Finite intellection" is
> a concept to be eliminated. All intellect is a contradictory identity of
the
> finite and the infinite, and as such is creation.
I don't know how you define intellect as anything but finite, unless of
course you have bought into the Pirsigian idea of a universal "organic"
Intellect as a "mode" of Quality.
> For me, purpose is not something that can have a rationale.
Do you mean that purpose is not something we can rationalize, or that
purpose is something we can not know?
> It is, instead,
> yet another of the long list of names for the same (non-)thing, like
value,
> consciousness, and intellect. Everything else's rationale needs explaining
> in terms of purpose (and the rest). That is, it is primal.
You've lost me completely here. Apparently something along this line of
thought has you agitated. Can you state what it is with a bit more clarity?
> See Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry" for an
> interesting inquiry into idolatry.
I'll check it out.
> The function of the logic of contradictory
> identity is to deconstruct any such concept, even one which "Man cannot
> experience ... directly", or maybe especially such. Not because "to be
> experienced" is the mark of the real, but because the unexperienced is in
> contradictory identity to the experienced.
Is the "unexperienced" then your reality? And, if so, what is its nature or
essence?
> And, of course, I see you as still a bit in the grip of idolatry, "but
> almost there", and I am not sure if having an ontology isn't a mark
thereof.
Nothing is sure at this juncture -- that's for sure! And I wish you would
explain what is idolatrous about my philosophy. (It sounds as if I've been
living in sin.)
But I'm optimistic enough to think you and I are metaphysically on the same
page.
Thanks, Scott
Ham
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Mar 24 2005 - 05:56:43 GMT