From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Tue Aug 30 2005 - 21:24:19 BST
Paul,
Paul said:
I'm not sure if an essentialist necessarily has to believe in
Platonic Forms. But anyway, as I understand it, 'essentialism' is just the
theory that one can divide the properties of an object up into those which
are intrinsic to it being what it is, and those that are not, i.e. those
that are merely accidental. The worst thing about this is that it leads to
the belief that one description can, in principle at least, get at the
essential construction of the world which raises the epistemological problem
of how you know when you have hit upon a description of an object's
essential properties.
Scott:
Right. That is why one shouldn't be an essentialist in the sense of hoping
for an absolute set of essences, or without bringing in the role of
existents (or manifestations). But one shouldn't be an anti-essentialist in
the hope of avoiding epistemological or ontological problems, either. The
materialist can be an anti-essentialist, since s/he does not assume there is
any value at the inorganic level (at the cost of not being able to account
for value at the upper levels). But the MOQ does, and that raises the
problem of how much that in SOM was relegated to the subject (as value was)
now has to be accounted for at the inorganic level. I maintain that one
needs the whole zoo of concepts and consciousness, that value without them
is not value. Since a SPOV walks like a concept and quacks like a concept,
let's call it a concept.
[Scott prev]>However, suppose one doesn't insist that all essences be
eternal and
>unchanging. Then the MOQ would appear to be essentialist, only it calls
>essences "static patterns of value".
Paul said:
I don't agree with this. My interpretation is that all static values
emerge in a relationship to other values i.e. they are dependently
originated and sustained. As such there is nothing that is non-relational
hence there are no essences.
Scott:
You have brought in something very like 'essences' when you mention
'relationship to other values'. I agree that there is nothing
non-relational, but that is true of concepts as well. A completely
isolatable concept or SPOV doesn't happen, but the question is whether an
SPOV is a universal form or a particular. Since 'pattern' is just another
word for 'form', it sure looks to me like a form, albeit impermanent and not
isolatable.
Paul said:
In the MOQ 'things' are defined as "enormously
complex correlation[s] of sensations and boundaries and desires." [LILA
p137] Does this make the MOQ nominalist? Well, as I have said previously,
the question of whether one is nominalist or not depends on a prior
assumption that either individual objects or universal forms must have
metaphysical primacy over the other. Since, as far as I can tell, the MOQ
makes no such assumption (as both universal forms and individual objects are
static) I still think this is a false dilemma.
Scott:
Then the MOQ includes essences (that which is established by 'correlations'
and 'boundaries') -- impermanent ones, to be sure -- in its ontology. So the
MOQ is not anti-essentialist. Good for it. And since those essences provide
value (meaning), they act just like concepts. (a side note: it is unclear
what you mean by "individual object". Insofar as it is something enduring,
if only for a while, it is also a static form. Hence in the following
example, I added "in a given instant", which it is problematic to describe
as static.)
[Scott said] Note that a particular horse in a
>given
>instant is not an SPOV.
Paul: I don't think that's right. A particular horse in a given instant is
composed of a particular combination of related biological and inorganic
values. It's just that the particular relations of values described by
humans as 'horses' are those valued for human biological, social and
intellectual purposes, purposes which are apt to change and which don't get
any closer to or further away from anything that could be metaphysically
worthy of the term 'essential horseness'. So there is nothing intrinsic to
be discovered about the patterns of the horse, just a resemblance between
patterns valued within specific purposes. Just see these patterns as
positively and negatively valued inorganic and biological 'causal pressures'
under different social and intellectual descriptions, in this case
descriptions containing the word 'horse'.
Scott:
My point was that a particular horse in a given instant is meaningless (has
no value) without the surrounding SPOV. Similarly, an isolated word is
meaningless. It requires context. In other words, there never is "a
particular horse in a given instant". There is, rather, like you said above,
a complex combination of SPOV, made manifest in that instant. So I think we
agree here.
[Scott prev]
Rather it instantiates SPOV (by being a horse, also
>by being a particular horse, say Trigger, over time). Because it
>follows a bunch of SPOV we can to some extent predict its behavior.
Paul said:
It is not because it follows static patterns but rather because it
*is* a bunch of static patterns that we can predict its behaviour. 'It' is
not separate from the patterns.
Scott:
True, but doesn't this sound essentialist? This horse in this instant
consists of one bunch of static patterns, while that horse in that instant
consists of a somewhat different set. The commonality is the essence, and
remove it and you've got the accidents relative to that commonality (though
the accidents do follow/are other patterns).
[Scott said] But Paul (and
>probably Pirsig) claim that the MOQ is anti-essentialist. From this I
>guess one must conclude that they assume that until there was language,
>there were no SPOV.
Paul said:
No, it is clear from the hierarchy that there were at least inorganic
and biological patterns before there was language. And these patterns are
presumed to be causally independent of social and intellectual patterns.
Scott:
Of course, but you haven't addressed my point, which is that you run into
problems by claiming "anti-essentialism" *and* say that the inorganic and
biological patterns are patterns of value. If there are inorganic patterns
and if they constitute value, how are they different from concepts? If there
are no differences, then the original motivation for claiming
"anti-essentialism", namely, the denial that there is anything conceptual
outside of human thinking, goes away.
- Scott
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