From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Tue Dec 06 2005 - 08:51:35 GMT
Rebecca primarily
On 27 Nov.you posed this question:
> > If arete is the same as quality, and quality (in ZMM) is dynamic
> > quality (in Lila)... and dynamic quality is the pre intellectual
> > cutting edge of experience, then that's what arete is as well? Does that
> > mean that DQ is excellence? Could we say that what is most excellent is
> > what is here right now.. and now.. and now...? Live in the now man?
> > Or am I confused about Pirsig's conception of the Good??
The 29th - after having cited half of LILA and then some - Paul
arrived at this. But what is said here?
> In a similar vein, the meaning of the word aretê comes from a
> prehistoric time before intellect and so is heavily linked to social
> quality, hence the translation into "virtue." But words invented
> socially are not excluded from being used intellectually and so it is
> not necessary to say that aretê is restricted to being a "social era"
> term for Quality that still meant social quality when it was later
> used by the Sophists to refer to all-round excellence, including
> intellectual excellence.
Aretê is Quality as it manifests at the social level, that's correct
enough, but it sounds like Paul sees Aretê as intellectual too. But
why are things described as if the intellectuals (dialecticians)
were the enemies of Aretê. That's your question.
> As well as social leadership, physical
> prowess is the subject of an abundance of superlatives in Iliad and
> Odyssey and the Sophists, after all, were masters of the logos.
It sounds like mastering something - whatever - is Aretê to Paul.
Showing great skills on the battlefield is the same as coming up
with great theories. This muddles things up completely
> So I
> don't think aretê is just social quality, if anything I think it is
> more that the Greek conversion of "rt" into "aretê" often seems to
> leave it referring more to static quality than to Dynamic Quality as
> well.
Look! In the "Romantic/Classic" metaphysics the transition from
Aretê to Intellect is described as
"...it's here that the classic mind for the first time took
leave of its romantic origin...(page 366)
Thus it's plain that (in a MOQ retrospect) Aretê or Romantic
correspond to the social level while Dialectics or Classic
correspond to the intellectual and what is described the latter
breaking loose from the former.
Conclusion:
Aretê is social all right, but static social value had a dynamic
"pre-social" component; something about Aretê that always
eluded the Ancients. Nowadays the 4th. level has its pre-
intellectual "something" that constantly eludes us and my
"warning" is that we must limit the fourth level to its obvious static
value, the S/O one and see its dynamism as what urged Pirsig to
create the Quality perspective.
Get it? ;-)
Bo
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