From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Jul 13 2003 - 19:56:01 BST
Platt,
> You've [Pi] put your finger squarely on the nut of the problem. Until that
> infinite-regress paradox is addressed by each participant, intellectual
> descriptions of the intellectual level will continue to go around in
> circles without end.
This is why I have continually recommended books on differential mysticism,
in particular, Robert Magliola's *Derrida on the Mend*. It (the paradox) is
also the driving force of what I have called Ironic Metaphysics. It takes
this paradox as the starting point, that forces us to recognize that we
cannot bottom out with clear and distinct ideas. Instead we have to bottom
out with triples like Quality/DQ/SQ, and then ask: since this is
undefinable, how to we proceed to think? I believe the solution is to be
found by imitating the foundations of mathematics, which solved a similar
problem with the axiomatic method. It won't be the same solution, since the
issues metaphysics deals with are those that mathematics defines out of
existence. The solution is really more of an attitude than a set of
propositions, roughly that of recognizing that the Truth requires
transcendence, so what we do here is propose various working definitions and
see how far they take us. Which is, of course, what Pirsig says he is doing
in Lila, but I think this needs to be moved from a methodological principle
to a foundational one. That is, to see the paradox of the intellect trying
to describe itself as being an instance of the process of creation. It is a
case of the DQ/SQ conflict, and requires the logic of contradictory identity
if we wish to approach it.
>
> I have yet to find anyone who has made a clear distinction between
> intellectual patterns that belong in the intellectual level and those that
> don't. (Intuitive intellect is an oxymoron.). If there are intellectual
> patterns that don't belong, where do they go instead?
Steiner's phrase is "intuitive thinking", not intellect, but I presume you
would regard that as an oxymoron as well. It is referring to experience he
and others claim to have have had, and is, I think, the same sort of
experience that Franklin Merrell-Wolff is referring to with his term
"introception" (a word he coined). Since it is an experience that is only
available to a few is why I mentioned that I was getting esoteric. If you
are interested in whether there is substance behind the phrase you would
have to read their books and make your own judgment. (The other guy is Georg
Kuhlewind, with an umlaut on the 'u', but I see that using my keyboard
character didn't come through).
>
> I have also yet to find anyone who has offered a better definition of
> intellect than Pirsig's "manipulation of symbols." (Since that is the
> author's definition, I take it to be "Q-intellect.") Anyone have a better
> definition?
Well, I find Pirsig's definition inadequate, for two reasons. The first is
that it does not provide a means to distinguish automatic symbol
manipulation as occurs in a computer (or in a brain) from human thinking, in
which we are aware of what we are thinking, and feel that it is we who are
doing (directing) the thinking. The second is that it does not account for
hypothesis formation, in particular the "Aha!" experience, something which
transcends manipulation.
My "definition" comes from Owen Barfield's book *Saving the Experiences*,
what he calls alpha-thinking. It is the situation where thoughts take place
in a subject/object setting, meaning that the thinker experiences the
thinking as his or her own, not as coming from "outside", and in which the
thought is about something that is assumed to not be part of the thinker
(called the object of thought). Once one has this ability to distinguish the
thinker from the thought about one can also carry out thinking in which the
thinking is the object of thought. This occurs in doing mathematics, and, to
relate this to the comment above, I believe can be a way of doing
philosophy.
Barfield's book argues that this kind of thinking evolved out of an earlier
situation where the human being did not see himself as separated from the
perceived world -- indeed that what we call thoughts were then perceived as
coming from outside, and as connected to what we now call the object of
perception.
The reason for identifying this situation (the S/O divide) with the fourth
level (or Q-intellect) is that it is only when you have a subject (the
thinker feels that he is independent from the thought-about) is it possible
for there to be an independent level that can be in conflict with the social
level.
- Scott
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