From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 02 2003 - 02:25:38 GMT
Anthony, Andy and all:
Hey Doc, I'd be interested in a hard copy of your thesis too...
McWatt quotes Pirsig:
"To reify means to regard an abstraction as if it had a concrete or material
existence. You don't lose the value of quality by treating it as if it had
a concrete or material existence. You lose the value of quality by treating
it as if it had only an abstract existence. That is the fundamental point
of the MOQ. Beasley's unease is caused by an inability to understand the
basic assertion of the MOQ. He assumes it is in error because it
contradicts his prejudices but never explains why his prejudice is
superior."
Andy asked Dr. McWatt:
Well, this may be so, but isn't Pirsig on shaky ground here. You don't give
this much more discussion, but seem content to dismiss Beasley with Pirsigs
brush-off. WHat does Pirsig mean when he says, "You don't lose the value of
quality by treating it as if it had a concrete or material existence."
Quality has a concrete and a material existence? And this is a "fundamental
point of the MOQ?" Uh-oh, I have just missed something here. What is it?
I don't know what quality is, but I don't think it has a "concrete or
material existence." If it does, could someone help me see why this is so.
dmb chimes in:
As real as rocks and trees. This is what I've been trying to get at in the
other thread, where I tried to show those two theories of truth as
incompatible. In these terms, Rorty treats truth as if it only had an
abstract existence, as a property of sentences, as a matter of
intersubjective agreement. Pirsig, on the other hand, treats truth as if it
were as real as...
Pirsig:
"They have their genesis in society the same way that society has its
genesis in biology. WIthout biology there is no society. Without society
there is no intellect since there would be no one to talk to anyone else and
thus no language to speak and thus nothing to contain the ideas."
Andy replied:
From here it seems there is just a small step to saying truth is a propety
of language. I am not disagreeing here I am just noting for others the
"linguistic turn" that Pirsig has taken. To DMB, in particular, it seems
Pirsig notes the imporatance of language to truth.
dmb says:
I think you've misread here. I don't see the small step to Rorty's theory of
truth and I don't think he's talking about the "linguistic turn" here. (I'd
bet a buck that you got this idea from Matt.) It seems pretty clear to me
that he is talking about the way in which ideas (intellectual static
quality) are situated in that matter-of-fact evolutionary relationship. He's
pointing out the necessary relationship between the social level, where
language was born, and the realm of ideas, where we use this inheritance to
paint our ideas. In the same way that biology preceeds society, language
preceeds intellect. He makes the same point in several different ways. Maybe
you rememeber where he corrects Descartes. He re-phrases the famous quote
as, "French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am". (Or
something like that) Also this evolutionary relationship is built right into
his hierarchy, the moral codes, the four levels and all that.
Its at this point that I realized I was hijacking Anthony's thread and so
re-named the subject line. It had been titled "NEW PIRSIG WEBSITE". And now
I feel somewhat liberated and hope you'll indulge me further...
It seems that there are lots of specific differences between Rorty and
Pirsig, and I've pressed the distinction between their two theories of truth
because is one of those specific cases that seems to be central to their
overall differences. In the broader view they seem just as incompatable.
While Rorty's intersubjective agreement might bare some similarities to what
Pirsig describes as sanity, that is about as far as it goes. Rorty's truth
is such a flimsy and arbitrary kind of truth, but Pirsig insists there is
something that holds it all together, just as there is something that holds
the glass together and lets you drink. There is a rightness that holds
"sanity" together, and its the same force that holds everything together. He
even asserts that this is the oldest idea known to man. (Mythology expressed
it before there were such things as ideas.)
He paints a picture of reality such that excellence in human life is
achieved when one is somehow in harmony with this cosmic rightness. The
static patterns are variously mastered, extinquished, or otherwise put to
sleep. When one is no longer fighting against or otherwise tangled up in
these static forms, genuine freedom and creativity may be achived. In
religious circles this might be refered to as "getting right with God" or
"obedience to God's will". Its what Campbell calls "following your bliss".
There's no good reason to avoid this spiritual aspect of Pirsig's work. He's
always been looking for the Buddha in one way or another and so the MOQ is
much, MUCH more comparable to Eastern Philosophy and mysticism than it is to
anything like neo-pragmatism. The latter has analogies and contingencies all
the way down, the MOQ has the unfolding of an evolutionary universe in which
all static forms are tranparent to the divine, are shown to be children of
the creator. A neo-pragmatic atheist and physicalist is just naturally gonna
be lightyears away from all that. I don't pretend to speak for Anthony and
I'm not even sure he'd agree with this, but I think its no accident that he
opened with this theme. Its at the heart and soul....
Anthony McWatt quotes THE HYMS OF THE RG-VEDA in Indian Philosophy:
"Rta (i.e. Quality) denotes the order of the world. Everything that is
ordered in the universe has Rta for its principle. It corresponds to the
universals of Plato. The world of experience is a shadow or reflection of
the Rta, the permanent reality which remains unchanged in all the welter of
mutation. The universal is prior to the particular, and so the Vedic seer
thinks that Rta exists before the maifestation of all phenomena. The
shifting series of the world are the varying expression of the constant Rta.
So Rta is called the father of all..."
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