From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu Mar 24 2005 - 18:27:04 GMT
Ham,
Ham said:
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.
Scott:
Which is apparently why you are unable to make sense of what I am saying.
See below. Also, to think that Western non-mystics aren't speaking in
metaphors is highly dubious.
Ham said:
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.)
Scott:
The only philosophology that isn't philosophy would be straight biographies
or summaries of the thought of other philosophies. What Matt is doing is
metaphilosophy, which is also philosophy. He's inquiring into what one does
when philosophies clash, which is of especial interest here, since we didn't
all sign an allegiance to the MOQ to post here.
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 said:
> 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.
Ham said:
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:
Then we differ.
Scott said:
> 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?
Ham said:
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.
Scott:
Umm, Kant rejected the ontological argument for God, but nevermind.
What I am trying to do is split up "primary" from "source". To me, "primary"
means one cannot think past it, that is, there is no deeper level of
explanation. "Source", on the other hand, means to me an idol, something
from which something else is derived, and so privileged over the derived.
Ham said:
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:
No, we part company with the requirement of a source. So I guess in your
terms I have no ontology. That's ok with me to not have one. However, I
would say that the MOQ does have an ontology (since DQ is a source), though
it hasn't been developed, other than in the "DQ is the cutting edge of
experience, leaving SQ in its wake" formula, which I reject.
> 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
Ham said:
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.)
Scott:
The function of the tetralemma is to reject various classes of views. The
first horn, "not essence" rejects substantialist views, or as Buddhists put
it, denying that things or the self have "inherent self-existence", or
"essential natures" and so forth. The second horn rejects nominalist or
existentialist views. The third horn rejects the views of postulating union
at a higher level (and thus will reject your Essentialism, and the MOQ). The
fourth horn rejects pragmatic views that see essence vs. existence as a
pseudo-problem, and so any sort of nihilism or skepticism. That is, after
rejecting the first three types of views, it also says "but keep inquiring
into essence and existence".
Ham said:
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.
Scott:
I am rejecting a primary *source*, which is what the Somewhat refers to.
>
> So you are presupposing an undifferentiated source (like the MOQ does).
Scott:
Huh? Didn't I just reject any undifferentiated Somewhat?
Scott said:
> 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.
Ham said:
But are you rejecting a primary source? That is the real question. (And
please don't tell me it's Quality.)
Scott:
See above. Yes, though I do regard a lot of words as primal (including the
word "word").
Scott said:
> 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.
Ham said:
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.
Scott:
This is a Pirsigian idea? Hardly. It is an idea of mine that I have been
trying to inflict on the MOQ, and which all the defenders of the MOQ have
resolutely rejected.
Scott said:
> For me, purpose is not something that can have a rationale.
Ham said:
Do you mean that purpose is not something we can rationalize, or that
purpose is something we can not know?
Scott:
Purpose, like consciousness, value, intellect, love, etc., is primal. It
cannot be explained in other terms, yet cannot be denied.
Scott said:
> 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.
Ham said:
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?
Scott:
Why should I be agitated? And no, I don't think I can state it more clearly,
but then I don't expect that which is primal to be "clear and distinct",
since it in itself can never be an object of thought. Not when it is
contradictory identity. Please note that I am not trying to be mystifying in
some sort of Zen koan sense. It's just that this is where Aristotelian
logic, and Hegelian logic, fails.
Scott said:
> 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.
Ham said:
Is the "unexperienced" then your reality? And, if so, what is its nature or
essence?
Scott:
No. the function of the logic of contradictory identity is to deconstruct
any such concept as "a reality", or "nature or essence" of something. Thaty
doesn't mean the words should be thrown out (see the fourth horn of the
tetralemma), but one shouldn't expect a straightforward answer to questions
such as "what is real", or "what is the essence of X".
Scott said:
> 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.
Ham said:
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.)
Scott:
We are all living in sin. That is one doctrine of Christianity that I
accept, though I consider it equivalent to the Buddhist doctrine of avidya
(ignorance). It shows in philosophy in the form of building idols that we
call "primary sources". What I hope to do with the logic of contradictory
identity is come up with a self-deconstructing metaphysics -- with "self"
referring both to the metaphysics and to the metaphysician.
Ham said:
But I'm optimistic enough to think you and I are metaphysically on the same
page.
Scott:
It doesn't look like it to me.
- Scott
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