From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 14:02:17 GMT
Hi Matt S: Thanks for clarifying your views.
> > Is man not the center of thought? Who or what would
> > you nominate as
> > the center of thought if not man?
>
> When I say man is at the centre of thought I am
> denoting the reciprocity between the subject and the
> object that constitutes thought. Man thinks, but
> thought also defines man. This ‘humanism’ is a term
> used by Foucault to describe not only man’s inability
> to recognise this circularity, but also the inability
> to think ‘outside’ it. E.g., morality is defined by
> man, but also defines how man thinks about morality:
> all whilst man thinks he is engaging with ‘reality’,
> when clearly he isn’t.
Is Foucault's judgment about what is or isn't "reality" a universal? It
looks like Foucault claims to know the truth about "reality." Does he set
forth an entire metaphysics to back up his claim, like Pirsig?
> To decentre man here is to
> open thought up to questioning the very basis, the
> very frontier, of this circular process. One can see
> now why I feel the MoQ has a role to play, as it sees
> ‘universals’ not as universal, but mere patterns of
> value – man can be decentred.
Looks to me like being "decentered" is a "universal good" in Foucault's
value system. As for the MOQ, if Quality isn't a universal in Pirsig's
theory, you and I have a different view of the meaning of "universal."
> > Who is "they?"
>
> ‘They’ are this fundamental concepts created by man,
> e.g. truth, reason, morality.
A bit redundant don't you think? Are not all concepts, fundamental or
otherwise, created by man? Would you say Foucault has any
"fundamental concepts?"
> > Yes, I do deny that truth, morals and thought are
> > the result of chance
> > and change....I
> > believe is it absolutely and forever moral to
> > eliminate slavery. How about
> > you?
>
> Are you asserting that all truth, all morals, are
> universal, or only some? In any case, you’re
> effectively arguing against the last 40 years of
> thought.
Whose "thought" are you referring to? Do you see something wrong
with arguing against the "last 40 years of thought?"
> If slavery is ‘absolutely’ immoral, surely
> it must have been immoral before mankind came along –
> this is absurd: as absurd as gravity existing before
> Newton, to paraphrase Pirsig himself.
Slavery could not have been immoral before mankind came along
because slavery by definition requires the existence of one man to
enslave another. Gravity as a name for a force didn't exist before
mankind because names for things are products of man. But if gravity
as a force didn't exist prior to mankind, we wouldn't be here to call it
"gravity."
> > Pirsig doesn't "deconstruct" SOM. He points out its
> > essential
> > weakness.
>
> I would argue that he does deconstruct it: he traces
> its development, it’s key moments, such as to point
> out the cracks in it’s foundation – this is
> deconstruction. But I’m interested in the idea of the
> MoQ including SOM.
We have different ideas of what "deconstruction" is all about, but I'll
pass on that for now.
> > I fail to see any agreement between the MOQ and
> > postmodern theory
> > which begins by denying the existence of a universal
> > truth while at the
> > same time asserting its denial to be universally
> > true. Do you see the
> > absurdity?
>
> Pirsig interrogates the very basis upon which thought
> takes place; he shows how thought within the SOM is
> not, as previously thought, a true window on reality,
> but rather just one way of perceiving reality; he
> nihilistically denies the rightful sovereignty of any
> mode of thought – this is virtually a dictionary
> definition of postmodernism as it applies to discourse
> on thought. And I think your sentence perhaps
> misrepresents the postmodernists – I think they would
> rather it be phrased “all I can be sure of is that
> there is no universal truth”.
Let's see. Is that 100 percent "sure" and thus a universal truth, or 99.98
percent sure and thus more accurately "maybe sure." If the former, you
can see the self-contradiction I'm sure. If the latter, the door to
universals is left open. It's my contention that logically you cannot deny
the existence of universals without invoking a universal in your denial.
Platt
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