From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Thu Aug 11 2005 - 01:26:23 BST
Paul (DMB mentioned),
Paul said: I have the book. I'll be reading it shortly. I'm genuinely
interested in understanding it so I'll probably stay off the forum until
I've digested it. <skip>
Scott:
Ok, I'll refrain from responding to the skipped part. A warning about the
book: the preface is not typical of the book. In the preface Magliola gets
cute with word stems and such, mimicking some post-modern writing. The rest
of the book is not like that.
Paul said:
But Sam's
>response to DMB in the "Tat Tvam Asi, Campbell and Theosis" thread is also
>applicable. The source of the anti-intellectual language of Pirsig stems, I
>believe, from the Romantic reaction to Modernism, which is to say, it is
>itself Modernist, dependent on a SOM view of intellect (as a mirror of
>nature, and hence separate from nature).
Paul said: Naturally, I disagree with this recurring claim. The MOQ views
intellect* as one set of value patterns within a larger context of patterns
existing in an evolutionary relationship. If we extend 'nature' to mean all
values then intellect is nature. If nature is limited to inorganic and
biological patterns then, to the extent that the levels are independent from
one another, intellect is "separate from nature" i.e. it is part of culture.
Either way, I don't think it's true that Pirsig thinks that intellect is
only a "mirror of nature." It is this idea - subjective correspondence to
objective reality - that the MOQ is trying to debunk. In the MOQ
intellectual patterns are produced by Quality, not inorganic/biological
patterns, and their 'reality' isn't dependent on their 'adequate
representation' of either, but on their value.
Scott:
I am not accusing Pirsig of thinking of intellect as separate from nature
(meaing here, the inorganic and biological). The problem is that he solves
the problem of the separation introduced by Descartes et al in the same way
that materialists did, that is, that intellect is an outgrowth of nature.
(And just to be clear, I recognize that with the addition of Quality to the
mix, Pirsig is not a materialist). In pre-modern times, intellect was
understood (indeed, according to Barfield, more or less perceived) to be
within nature -- as its cause if nothing else, but also the idea that nature
as we perceive it is the outer manifestation of an inner working intellect.
It is not that a horse had intellect, but that horseness was an idea of
nature's.
Then, first with nominalism, and later with the mechanism of the 17th
century, all that psychic stuff came to be considered to exist only in the
human (and God). To get over this dualism, materialism proclaimed that all
that psychic stuff was "really" complicated mechanism, coming into being in
time. It is this picture that the MOQ preserves, but adds DQ as the agent of
change, and drops the mechanical character. I've given my reasons often
enough on why this picture should be tossed out entirely, so I won't repeat
them here -- at this point I am only explicating what I mean by saying that
the MOQ preserves a Modernist error.
Paul said: (*I think an ongoing problem is that you see intellect as
something that
rocks share with humans. When I talk about intellect I am talking about
maths, philosophy, physics etc. which rocks presumably don't do. I think
there is too much equivocation of 'intellect' going on in your metaphysics
for it to be useful.)
Scott:
First, I do not consider that a rock or a horse has intellect. Only that
intellect is involved in there being rocks and horses, or more precisely,
that the rocks and horses that we perceive are words in nature's language,
and this should be not be taken as an analogy. Second, I talk about
intellect this way to make my point that Quality and Intellect are two names
for the same (non-)thing. I consider it vitally important for our
development that we recognize our intellect, the one that does math and
philosophy as being, albeit in a very limited and immature way, the same
process that creates realities.
Scott asked:>Let me leave you with this question: I said that the aesthetic
requires
>division. Do you agree?
Paul: Where 'aesthetic experience' is synonymous with 'an awareness of
value', no, I don't agree that an awareness of value requires division. I
think division requires an awareness of value.
Scott's question continued: If so, does it make any sense at all to speak of
an
>undifferentiated aesthetic continuum? If not, can you explain how one can
>have an aesthetic experience (or experience simpliciter) without division?
Paul: To use one of your retorts - one cannot and need not explain
something which is considered primary.
Scott:
Ok. Then we differ as to what is primary: you say undivided aesthetic
continuum, and I say one must start one's thinking with divided/undivided
contradictory identity. I consider the former to be centric, and therefore
misleading, while the latter is more pragmatic, as it puts into question the
concept of 'primary' itself (it is more a rule of thumb for thinking about
things mystical than a source.)
Paul said:
P.S. You said:
>(I note in passing that this difference cannot be
>settled
>empirically, so it is nonsense to describe the MOQ as empirical).
Paul: As I understand it, the MOQ says that values are empirical, not the
MOQ. The only thing empirical about the MOQ is the observation of its
intellectual quality. But as the pragmatists tell us, this is the only
thing verified about any thesis or proposition i.e. its value in a given
context. The statement - "It is nonsense to describe the MOQ as empirical"
- is a result of the "observation" of low (intellectual) quality.
Scott:
Pirsig says that the MOQ is based on empiricism, and I can agree with that
in the sense that you supply here. but I can't see that that distinguishes
it from any other metaphysics. What I do not grant is the claim that DMB has
made that the mystical philosophy that underlies the MOQ is empirical.
Neither is mine, of course.
- Scott
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