From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 23:10:06 BST
Bo,
I've been debating how to respond both to your original post in this thread
or to this, but basically have to come back to what I said earlier: because
I do not agree with all of Pirsig's assumptions, I am unwilling to debate
the nature of the intellect within the MOQ framework. I see my goal now as
pointing out the flaws in those assumptions, and that its treatment of
intellect is a result of those flaws. (As to a replacement, that to some
extent comes out in pieces, but it is impossible to give a full
presentation, since that requires a book -- as of course does the MOQ.
Fortunately, the book (that is, books) have been written and I have said
what they are. But I cannot assume anybody has or will read them. Nor do I
assume that if someone does read the books they will agree with them. Like
Paul :-).
Just to clarify, no, Kant is not my man. My point was that because Kant
considered the things-in-themselves to be thing-like is why he considers
them unknowable. If one instead adopts the Steiner/Barfield idea that the
perceived things are representations, then one can consider the
things-in-themselves to be conceptual, and that our concepts of them are a
partial knowing of them. The full knowing of them comes with final
participation.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: <skutvik@online.no>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: MD The final solution or new frustration.
> Hi Scott.
> Thanks for treating my post so thoroughly ;-). Never mind I love your
> "Sermons of the Mount", you are at you best when not disturbed by
> arguments. I have to snip off bits and pieces to make this within limits,
> but you know what you have written.
>
> 26 Sep. you wrote:
> > In tracing the argumentation of the MOQ, I see the fundamental error
> > to be one that is shared with SOM, and that is nominalism.
>
> No, not after the intellectual level is understood in its QUALITY form.
>
> > (As an
> > aside, I agree with Sam that SOM is a late bloomer. The Greeks and the
> > medievals were not SOMists, for they were not nominalists.) Nominalism
> > is the position that what there is are things and events, or
> > particulars (if one is William of Ockham, the first major nominalist,
> > one will add God to what exists). Words and concepts are considered to
> > be more particulars that "stand for" other particulars.
>
> The MOQ is on the realist side ...if you are bent on using that
> template.
>
> > This position only became possible with the loss of original
> > participation (as described by Barfield in Saving the Appearances).
>
> Barfield calls the great change "loss of original participation". The
> MOQ postulates a similar change as the advent of the intellectual
> level. And this is also a loss. (ref. my "cultural approch", the old
> (social) order being scattered by the new scepticism ...etc)
>
> > Participation is an extra-sensory link between subject and object.
>
> Only a nit-picker comment: Before the change/loss there was no
> S/Odivide, thus it is superflous to speak of any link (here YOU
> suddenly turn nominalist), but never mind!
>
> > In
> > original participation, that link was experienced as something "on the
> > other side" of the phenomenon, what we might call the spirit of the
> > thing, if we experienced it. (Note, where something like this still
> > occurs, I think, is in listening to music.). With the loss of original
> > participation, objects became objects, that is "just there". With
> > original participation, the perceived object was experienced as a
> > representation of the spirit "behind" it. Note the word
> > "representation". This means that the things perceived were perceived
> > as representing something else.
>
> Yes, and this marries Barfield and Pirsig? The loss of "original
> participation" is the S/O split. The observations you make are an exact
> match of what Pirsigs says, f.ex. regarding physical objects where the
> "spirit behind" static value is Dynamic Value.
>
> > With a little thought, we can recover that notion that the thing
> > perceived is a ...snip ..... are just more things and events. Hence
> > Kant. While he recognized that we put together the perceived object,
> > he could only conceive that what might lie behind it (the
> > thing-in-itself) was, well, another thing.
>
> Is Kant you man or? Your reasoning here becomes hard to follow.
>
> > There is another reason for the hold nominalism has on us, and that is
> > that our words and concepts can be wrong, that we can debate over
> > which concepts are "correct" or "most useful", that words change
> > meaning, and so on. I will return to this later.
>
> Phew! Good.
>
> > The non-nominalist (back in the 14th century they were called
> > "realists", but since then that word has come to mean something
> > completely different) is one who understands the "stands for" relation
> > differently. Pirsig uses it in the nominalist way, as in:
>
> > "For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the intellectual
> > level is the same as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of
> > symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of experience."
>
> > Here a word (or more generally, symbol) stands for patterns of
> > experience. While superficially true, this hides something, namely
> > that "patterns of experience" is not experience.
>
> I agree, this sounds nominalist, it should have read: "Intellect is the
> value of distinguishing between symbols and experience".
>
> > Experience is always
> > experience of particulars, but a pattern of experience is a concept.
> > For the non-nominalist, a particular, like a word, stands for the
> > concept. Without the concept there can be no particular, for without a
> > concept (a system, a pattern, a language in a more general sense than
> > English) the particular cannot be picked out of chaos.
>
> I have problems following you ...technically I mean - but as we agree
> so much I guess this is right too.
>
> > The nominalist, especially after the nineteenth century, would have us
> > believe that concepts got tacked on to a world of ..........snip
>
> Here I managed to follow and am impressed - no sarcasm - but still
> see the MOQ as purely "realist". (Quality is Realism)
>
> > Well, arguments can go on and on, so let me stop here and just
> > summarize a non-nominalist metaphysics as it compares to the MOQ. In
> > brief, instead of placing Quality as the first principle, I would
> > place Intellect there instead. (Or the word Reason, as Coleridge did,
> > or the word Logos as John the Evangelist did).
>
> I understand, but once the "symbol manipulating-intellect" is modified,
> everything is straightened out. DQ is your "intellect" (don't you think
> "intelligence" is better?), it is "logos" ...whatever. Pirsig says:
"Quality
> is the oldest idea there is".
>
> Please - if you resond - let me have your opinion on my effort to fuse
> the various definitions of intellect or (if you have decided to drop the
> MOQ) your opinion on the comparison of Barfield's "loss of original
> participation" with the birth of intellect (and "loss" through "gaining"
> the S/O value)?
>
> Sincerely
> Bo
>
>
>
>
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