From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 07:14:52 BST
On 8 Sep. SQUONKSTAIL commented my message to DMB.
> > Compare this to the description of the emergence of SOM from the very
> > same past (ZMM page 365.Corgi paperback)
> > "One must first get over the idea that the time span between the last
> > caveman and the first Greek philosophers was short ....etc." ending
> > with this passage: "What is essential to understand is that until now
> > there was no such thing as mind and matter, SUBJECT AND OBJECT, form
> > and substance."
> squonk: But there were intellectual patterns of value. The sophists
> were intellectuals, but they incorporated intellectual value in to a
> larger whole and included it in the quality human. For many sophists,
> the arte human was biologically beautiful, socially accomplished and
> intellectually erudite.
Since you reason for a change, I'll reply. Again the sensitive point that
Pirsig who wrote ZAMM had not yet conceived of the full-fledged
MOQ. He had made the assertion that Quality is the ground and that
it creates subjects and objects. He had tried out the Romantic/Classic
model, but not arrived at the DQ/SQ split and the static hierarchy,
thus when he speaks of "intellectual" it is not necessarily the
intellectual level of the MOQ.
> > If this doesn't make the S/O divide identical with Q-intellect
> > something lacks in my logic, and after doing this harmonization
> > Socrates and his followers become representatives of the emerging
> > intellectual level, while their antagonists, the Sophists, stand for
> > the former value level - society - something that explain another
> > Pirsig "riddle", namely his anti-intellectual tendencies that the
> > critics saw in LILA. I need not repeat the "my enemy's enemy, my
> > friend" mechanism.
> squonk: Something does indeed lack in your logic. 1. First of all,
> Q-intellect is a term you have invented yourself. So, you self
> referentially confirm your own definitions without reference to the
> work of Robert Pirsig.
"Q-intellect" is an abbreviation for "the intellectual level of the MOQ",
no great sin there?.
> 2. The former value level is not fully
> represented by sophists - sophists were intellectual and on a par with
> the best philosophers.
You are right, there is always some fuzzy "in between" when a pattern
of the former level hasn't yet emerged as a new level. In this case the
Sophists were still serving those powerful and rich enough to hire
them, yet their "sophistry" indicates that an era was at an end. The
rulers of old couldn't care less about public opinion, but now verbal
argument had begun to assert itself; The word was becoming mightier
than the sword ...democracy was in the offing. Yet, at that time their
"business" looked offensive to the emerging intellectual reality where
TRUTH (objectivity) ranked above social power/influence/celebrity. As
Pirsig says:
"He (Plato) and Socrates are defending the immortal principle of the
cosmologists against what they consider to be the decadence of the
sophists. Truth. Knowledge. That which is independent of what
anyone thinks about it.
> 3. Pirsig may not have had anti-intellectual
> tendencies, he may have been a sophist himself, who wished for
> rationality to be diminished thus allowing social quality to harmonise
> with intellectual quality.
Without the SOL interpretation, nothing of this makes sense.
"Harmonise social quality with intellectual quality"? You must be
joking Mr. ...?
> > Back to the ZMM/LILA superimposition. Everything points to the
> > SOLAQI interpretation, God, if there is anything that supports it it's
> > this: The TRUTH (objectivity) as opposed to subjective OPINION (that
> > the Sophist stood for were at that time a fragile thing and Socrates
> > fought to death for it.
> squonk: The passage actually reads as follows:
> 'Now Plato's hatred of the sophists makes sense. He and Socrates are
> defending the immortal principle of the cosmologists against what they
> consider to be the decadence of the sophists. Truth. Knowledge. That
> which is independent of what anyone thinks about it.
Exactly. It fits seamlessly.
> The ideal that
> Socrates died for. The ideal that Greece alone possesses for the first
> time in the history of the world. It is still a very fragile thing.'
> The sophists taught excellence, and this included intellectual
> excellence also. But for them intellectual excellence is not an
> immortal principal, for them intellectual excellence is human art.
Yes, study this. Their artistic skill was a double-edged sword, they
could have used it in defending truth (the immortal principles) but they
argued for argument's sake ...the art of arguing.
> So,
> today scientists can draw upon a repertoire of human art in geometry,
> which are selected on aesthetic grounds rather than that of truth,
> because your scientific enquiry determines what geometry you choose -
> a choice based on Quality.
Art, aretę, excellence, aesthetics (Value) are at all levels and is
certainly employed in the said way today ...as it was in social reality
by sages and artisans, but can never be affixed to a static level. And
exactly that is your great fault: YOU WANT INTELLECTUAL VALUE
TO BE DYNAMIC!!
> > See also how Protagoras' (the arch Sophist) sentence of "Man the
> > measure of all things" fits with P. of ZMM's attitude of everything
> > being a human invention. Paul however mixes the pre-MOQ Pirsig with
> > the post MOQ one.
> squonk: Protagoras was very much admired by Socrates and Plato for his
> intellect. (Please read The Protagoras by Plato.) Some scholars find
> it exceptionally difficult to delineate between Socrates and
> Protagoras at many points in this dialogue - they appear to agree!
Then you should complain to Pirsig for his incorrect presentation of
the said conflict.
> have followed your posts with Paul, and i would be pleased if you
> could remind us all of just exactly where Paul, 'mixes the pre-MOQ
> Pirsig with the post MOQ one.' As far as i can ascertain, you self
> referentially impose your own interpretation onto Paul without
> reference to the work of Robert Pirsig.
Even if I have done so many times, I will try again in a coming post to
Paul.
> > Note that intellect's first clash with social value says nothing about
> > how long it may have served as a good social pattern ...helping
> > society grow and prosper. Each time I enter this, it's a tendency (of
> > this group) to either point to "S/O patterns" as impssible ancient as
> > the biological self/non-self, or point to non-S/O phenomena like art,
> > aesthetics, intuition, math. etc. all of which are facets of DYNAMIC
> > VALUE.
> squonk: 'non-S/O phenomena like art, aesthetics, intuition, math. etc.
> all of which are facets of DYNAMIC VALUE.' This is very much like
> saying, 'There are no subjects or objects in the MoQ. I certainly
> sympathise with that!
Thanks Squonk, you are such a perfect "Prügelknabe"
Sincerely
Bo
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