From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Sat Oct 08 2005 - 05:47:27 BST
Rebecca, Bo
Rebecca said:
> Another puzzle I've been toying with (suggestions from the group would
> be more than welcome on this one): Do Aristotle's Categories have
> Subject/Object logic 'hardwired' into their organization?y
Bo said:
Because Aristotle, according to Pirsig, is the first SOM
"mechanic" who started to categorize the more lofty ideas of
Plato's, all his work is subject/object-ish.
Scott:
I understand Aristotle's primary division being not subject/object but
matter/form. And what is curious is that his matter/form division sounds
very much like DQ/SQ, (matter, or substance, is undivided, has no pattern,
while form is, obviously, pattern) but with the important difference that
for Aristotle, the driver of change was form, that God is the form of form,
and so on. That is, he privileges form over formlessness, while Pirsig
privileges formlessness over form. Anyway, I don't see Aristotle as being
any more subject/object-ish than Pirsig.
Bo said:
You may know your Aristotle better than I, but the way Pirsig saw
the development of SOM (in ZMM) Plato's Idea vs Appearance
(ideas the real thing) was transformed by Ari to Substance vs
Forms (substance his real thing). Pirsig says that with Aristotle
"our modern scientific understanding of reality was born".
Scott:
No, for Aristotle, everything is both form and substance -- both are needed
for something to exist, and as mentioned, for Aristotle, form is the driver
of change, not substance.
Rebecca said:
> If you interpret Subjective/Objective within the MOQ framework using the
> definiton of Intellect I just gave you get: Something that is 'Objective'
> is just really really socially accepted, 'Subjective' is less accepted
> socially. The MOQ says it doesn't matter what 'society' says - it's about
> QUALITY.
Scott:
You want to be careful about confusing two different meanings of 'subject'
and 'object'. One meaning, which I have been calling S/O[1], is the
distinction between inside and outside, or mind and non-mind, is what you
are referring to here in the common use of 'subjective' and 'objective'. The
other meaning (S/O[2]) is what Bo is using in talking about the value of
intellect being the S/O divide, where O is anything (mental or material, or
social, etc.) that is being thought about. Just a cautionary note.
Unfortunately, Pirsig didn't distinguish between the two either. The MOQ, as
presented in Lila, gives arguments for overcoming the S/O[1] division, but
has no arguments for overcoming the S/O[2] division, except through
appealing to faith in mystical revelation.
- Scott
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