From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Wed Jul 13 2005 - 09:14:55 BST
Second instalment:
........
> Here's another attempt at understanding you:
> If the MoQ is Reality, then the MoQ is Quality.
> If the MoQ is Quality, then when people talk about Quality, they are
> giving opinions about the MoQ (that's what you said you were doing on
> June 21). If we are giving opinions about the MoQ on the MD, then
> Pirsig was giving opinions about the MoQ in Lila. If Pirsig was giving
> opinions about the MoQ in Lila, then when he presented a philosophical
> system called the "Metaphysics of Quality," he was making a systematic
> presentation of his opinions about Reality--about the MoQ.
> So, in the end, we have the "Metaphysics of Quality," which is
> Pirsig's assemblage of opinions about Reality, and the Metaphysics of
> Quality, which is Reality.
You constantly try to bluff me. Back to Newton and gravity. For
centuries it constituted physical reality. You may well say that
"when giving opinion about physical reality" they spoke about
Newton's theory, but no-one knew or cared. Thus reality is
constituted by the MOQ.
> Without commmenting on how silly that looks,
Only after going through your distortion machine.
> I will simply ask a
> question: If that's what you mean, how is it Paul and I are
> subjectivists, saying everything is intellect, when all we are talking
> about is the "Metaphysics of Quality," the same as you?
Because your MOQ is a travesty. Saying that the intellectual
level contains all theories makes it identical to "mind" and people
with that view identical to SOM idealists. Most embarrassingly
Pirsig too wandered into that pitfall, but checked himself in the
Paul letter. However not enough.
> It would
> appear that if we are subjectivists, so are you.
Even if Joseph Göbbels said so a lie does not become true by
repeating it.
> And further, it
> would also appear that the whole brouhaha is based on _your_ confusion
> over _your_ ambiguous terms because _you_ equivocate between the
> "Metaphysics of Quality" and the Metaphysics of Quality. Paul and I
> understand what we are doing; do you know what you're doing?
Equivocate between the MOQ and the MOQ??
> Bo said:
> No? Just look at the diagram of the tentative MOQ in ZMM. Admittedly
> the Romatic/Classic didn't become the final divide (it rather
> corresponds to the social and intellectual levels) but the fact that
> intellect is the S/O source is just as valid.
> Matt:
> You really, honestly believe its as easy as that? Suddenly my
> interpretation has been rebutted?
Yes as easy as that. You seem to be idling now Matt.
> Bo, if you had read my interpretation, you'd know that it would take
> your piece of evidence and spit it out as, "Pirsig's diagram is of the
> Modern predicament, not the Ancient."
Please enlarge on the Modern versus Ancient predicament.
> But let's be clear here, in case you ever do want to seriously forward
> your own interpretation (rather than the half-assed way you've been
> doing it so far): your full claim is "Intellect arose in Greece. SOM
> arose in Greece. Therefore intellect is SOM." I argued that SOM
> didn't arise in Greece. The subject-object metaphysics, which is
> encapsulated by the Subject-Object Dilemma, arose _after_ whatever it
> is that happened in Greece--and Pirsig knows it.
What is called intellect in the MOQ arose in Greece, so Pirsig
says in the Paul letter and so does Paul admit. That this
development also is described as the emergence of SOM is
plain. That these two facts makes SOM=intellect is just as plain, I
just wonder what's the reason is for denying it.
That SOM changed enormously from the Plato-Aristotles time to
Descartes' is also plain, so much that its ancient form can only
with difficulty be seen in the modern guise (perhaps this is your
modern/ancient above?) but it was the start of it, that's ZMM's
very message.
> Pirsig's primary
> target in ZMM wasn't SOM, but the "ghost of Reason." Oh, for sure,
> they're tied together. But you are using a bad textual reading of
> Pirsig (let alone the bad intellectual history, which is what it is
> even if we found Pirsig agreeing with you) to support your
> philosophical claims.
Pirsig obviously did not want to be too closely connected with
Phaedrus and used a narrator who tells ABOUT him, but it was
Phaedrus who wanted to trash reason .....in the beginning, by and
by however the full SOM with a subjective horn too became
apparent.
Bo
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