From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 13:15:26 BST
Scott and All
On 16 Aug. you wrote:
> [Barfield, What Coleridge Thought, p. 183-4, published 1971]
> "And we should be drawing attention...in particular to the Triad:
> Differentia, Concordantia, and Contrarietas, mediating descent from
> the absolute to the relative.
....snip
squonk: This is Greek thought - Aristotle, Plato and its Christian
derivatives. The absolute is Plato's Good. Coleridge is a man of his times!
> Well, no. Imagination, to Coleridge, is in contrast to the
> "understanding and the senses" referred to in the quote above. It is
> precisely not static, but (in MOQ terms) involves DQ. For Coleridge,
> the S/O divide is a case of the DQ/SQ divide, not a static idea. This
> is where Squonk is misguided in saying "there are no subjects and
> objects in the MOQ". If that were so, the MOQ would be useless, like
> theology would be if it left out sin.
squonk: The MoQ rejects subjects and objects as primary reality. Subjects and
Objects are intellectual patterns of value in the MoQ - intellectual value
comes first and then subjects and objects are artistic creations.
The MoQ is not useless without subjects and objects - it is more coherent
with out them.
> Pirsig is also wrong in trying to simply relegate the difference
> between subject and object to different static levels.
squonk: There are no subjects or objects in the MoQ to relegate in the first
place.
> While
> experience does divide into subject and object, it is also the case
> that thinking (and knowing) reunite them to create a unity that is
> distinguishable from the original Quality. That is, the S/O divide
> creates unity-in-individuality. Or rather, it will, once we learn to
> transcend the S/O divide without eliminating it.
squonk: Subjects and objects are culturally inherited - they are artistic
creations of the intellect - our mythos. We do not have to transcend that which
we do not need.
> I also think that Coleridge's metaphysics is better than Pirsig's, for
> precisely the things that are bothering you. Coleridge emphasizes the
> distinction between thinking and thoughts, for example. He would not
> have equated "static intellectual patterns of value" with "mind", or
> "thinking". Basically, Coleridge has a full philosophy of mind and
> nature (and which turn out to be the same) which Pirsig lacks, though
> the basics of it are there in the DQ/SQ split.
squonk: Mind and nature are static concepts. There is an obvious S/O
metaphysics at work here, but there are no subjects and objects in the MoQ.
>My assumption is that,
> in writing Lila, Pirsig did not see the need to get to it, and in a
> way he was right. However, if one does want to get to it, the tools
> and terminology aren't there -- hence the debates here on the nature
> of the intellectual level, your distress at the annotating Pirsig,
> etc. The tools and terminology can be found in Coleridge.
squonk: I can't see them. But please feel free to expound.
> Yes, his theory is triadic, and his discussion of Thirdness (of which
> the sign is his primary example) is anti-SOM. SOM assumes basic
> reality as composed of Seconds (e.g., object seen by subject), but he
> argues that the thirdness of the sign is irreducible to any
> combination of seconds, and since signs clearly exist as thirds, SOM
> must be false.
Squonk: The thirdness discussed here is the child before linguistic
conventions are imposed. If the linguist convention is derived from a mythos in which
subjects and objects are held to be primary, then one is free to contemplate
how a child experiences without socially imposed filters.
> Well, in the past I have tried to put forward the view that
> "everything is language", and that was based in part on Peirce.
squonk: Indeed.
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