From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 17:01:21 BST
On 8 Sep. SQUONKSTAIL commented:
> 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.
Skutvik:
Since you reason for a change, I'll reply.
squonk 10-9-03: There is no, nor has there been, a change.
Skutvik:
Again the sensitive point that Pirsig who wrote ZAMM had not yet conceived of
the full-fledged
MOQ.
squonk: 10-9-03: It is not even remotely sensitive in any respect.
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.
squonk: 10-9-03: Wrong. 1. The R/C split is not Pirsig's, it is a well known
distinction in western philosophy. 2. Quality is found in events. The DQ/SQ
division is an event. Intellectual events are experience of DQ/SQ relationships.
Some DQ/SQ relationships can be said to be subject, some object, but that is
a cultural distinction. The Tao is DQ.
Skutvik:
"Q-intellect" is an abbreviation for "the intellectual level of the MOQ",
no great sin there?.
squonk: 10-9-03: You have your own definition of AN intellectual level which
is not found in the MoQ. So, when i read 'Q-intellect' i read, 'Skutvik
doctrine definition of an intellect.' You must always make distinctions between your
ideas and those of others clear to avoid confusion.
> 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.
squonk: 10-9-03: Truth is still a matter of celebrity status. The ideas which
survive are the ones that are socially approved. The sophists are right.
> 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. ...?
squonk: 10-9-03: Rationality is an intellectual aesthetic based on harmonious
preselection - Quality. Intellectual aesthetic always has been far more than
your very limited definition. No one else agrees with your ideas. I certainly
do not. Please tell me of one individual who does? There is no social approval
of your ideas. This may be because they have little value.
> > 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.
Skutvik:
Exactly. It fits seamlessly.
squonk: 10-9-03: Immortal principles are aesthetic creations of the intellect
- Gods, water, gravity, number, truth. etc. Truth is one of a long line of
aesthetic creations of the intellect stretching back for tens, perhaps hundreds
of thousands of years. The truth Plato was concerned with, (Socrates has no
surviving texts - he may not have wrote anything anyway) was geometric certainty
- aesthetic found in ratio and proportion, measure and shape. Plato even had
a notice outside his teaching place which warned any one without a knowledge
of geometry to keep out! That is the immortal principle for you: number and the
certainty number appears to have; an intellectual aesthetic.
part II follows...
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