From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 13 2005 - 00:33:30 BST
Matt, (and Platt and DMB)
(Ask a simple question !)
I'll take that as a "Yes" then :-)
Building slowly ...
My mind is in turn "boggled" by your suggestion that "There's nothing
philosophically interesting about the difference between one's gut
reaction and one's further reflections." But clearly you don't mean
that because you go on to qualify it with a screed of philosophical
points. (And I can point you at years of correspondence on MoQ-Discuss
on roughly that subject.)
Using your words for now "pure sensation", "gut-feel" and "reflections" ...
All I really want to add at this point is that I agree that it would
be dangerous to label "gut-feel" as Pirsigian "Quality" exclusively
(there's more to a quality life than impulsive parking-lot sex). And
similarly it would be dangerous to label "reflections" as "Quality"
(or SOMism for that matter Bo) exclusivey (fretting freddies "murder
to dissect" or "paralyse by analysis").
I see that whole spectrum (spectral whole) between "pure sensation"
and "reflections" as the "Quality" interaction. Pirsig (and Barfield
?) simply reminds us that "gut-feel" and probably a lot else besides,
is an important part of it. Catch it before you (your subject) start
reflecting, so as to be able to apply something more than culturally
pre-conditioned Aristotelian rationality in the reflecting. Catch it
before it is "reduced" to subject and object. That's all. (If we ever
nail down quality to tightly - too objectively - we'll have killed
it.)
I'm afraid I don't get your points about DMB's case - but I
instinctively find quality in DMB's words. About Platt I wouldn't be
surprised - he generally wants to exclude middles and jump for one or
the other; "reflections" exclusively in his case, you say - but I
think that's a bit harsh.
Ian
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