From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 09 2003 - 01:14:11 GMT
Steve,
Steve said:
You say that you would rather think of the levels as stages of development in history rather than as ontological types (I'm not sure I understand that term either) which may mean we aren't even talking about the same thing when we talk about the levels. I thought you were willing to play metaphysics for a while?
Matt:
Well, you did ask about my own conception of the levels. You could still call what I wrote "metaphysics" in the Platonic sense. Just add a "this is what's _really_ real" addendum to every statement and you have a Hegelian metaphysics. Or you can use "metaphysics" the way Wim uses it and say that what I wrote is just one way of describing experience, one way of seeing how things hang together, the merits of which are based on how useful you find it.
Steve said:
I guess semiotic is my new word for the day. My dictionary says it means symbol-based communication. You emphasized that the differences between levels must be substantial to satisfy Pirsig's requirement that they are discrete. I don't think linguistic/non-linguistic is substantial enough to merit separate levels (and probably not even as discrete as it sounds).
Matt:
I think you are absolutely right, but then I've never had much use for discreteness when I do philosophy (which is what you asked for when we shifted from explication of Pirsig to explication of me). Discreteness is something I think you have to deal with if you want to remain a Pirsigian metaphysician, faithful to his ontological scheme. Discreteness is a problem I dissolve into a distinction between past and future.
Steve said:
I don't see why it is important that linguistic and non-linguistic patterns each have their own levels.
Matt:
Because I see language as an important and noteworthy evolutionary tool, but I still see a difference between cells and tigers.
Steve said:
I don't understand how a eudaimonic pattern of experience compares to an intellectual one in this formulation.
Matt:
In my forumulation of the two? Well, I haven't glossed it all out yet, but I think you can think of the break between the intellectual level and the eudaimonic level as the split between public and private spheres. Before the idea of privacy, everyone was susceptible to control by the public sphere. This goes along with language being at first a social thing. You talked to other people, you agree on the meanings of words, etc. With the creation of privacy, you start to talk to yourself.
I think I see the split like this:
intellectual v. eudaimonic
public v. private
language-as-convergence v. language-as-divergence
So, in a sense, I think you could make this split:
politics, science v. art, religion
Politics aims at consensus because politics is all about getting people to agree on policy to get stuff done. Science definitely aims at consensus. However, art and literature, it seems like the more different you are, the more idiosyncratic, the more appreciated you are. We don't like movies that fit a forumula, we like groudbreaking stuff.
With religion, I'm thinking of Whitehead's definition: religion is what we do with our aloneness.
So, what is a eudaimonic pattern of experience? Its what you experience when you are alone. It is intensely private. It is essentially mystical.
Hmm, stuff for me to think about. I like how things are shaping up.
Matt
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