From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Feb 08 2004 - 18:38:12 GMT
Hi Paul, David M. and Crowd.
6 Feb. DM wrote to Paul:
> Just wanted to say good post,
> I would accept what you say here.
Could you elaborate what you find so good.
..........................................................................
6 Feb. Paul wrote:
> > Bo said:
> > I accept this - of course I do - but just wanted to point out that
> > this is Pirsigs interpretation - a most convincing one, but it's
> > difficult imagining Plato postulating something as higher than GOOD
> > (could you provide a quote ...from Plato?)
> Paul:
> I think he does do what Pirsig says, but it is subtle. For example,
> this quote below seems to be agreeing with the MOQ that truth is
> subordinate to the good:
Of course Plato did, I have never questioned Pirsig's
interpretation only that Plato did not see any evil ..he did not in
his own eyes "subordinating Good to Truth" rather put Truth
above the dreaded "Man" who - according to Protagoras - was all
things measure . This new way of arranging things became the
SOM by and by, we agree about that, don't we?
But a million thanks for taking the trouble to look things up. These
excerpts I will save an try to ponder the particulars of Plato's
reasoning.
> Bo said:
> > Again, I accept Pirsig's interpretation, but contemporary Greek
> > thinkers did not know Aretê as Good. It got translated into "virtue" and
> > the translators would certainly have used "good" if that was the case.
> > It was P. in the RT passage in LILA who made this "discovery". This is
> > most convincing but it's no use by presenting it as if the Greeks knew
> > the MOQ, to the contrary they saw the S/O (or the embryonic form it had
> > with Plato) as the best.
> Paul:
> As Poot and Mark have responded, other translations suggest the Greeks
> saw it as excellence in human endeavour. The MOQ can divide it into
> biological excellence (e.g. strength, speed), social excellence (e.g.
> virtue, leadership), intellectual excellence (e.g. rhetoric, truth).
But of course I knew about the "excellence", no embarrassment
that, still it was Pirsig who made it into Quality and Quality into
Reality. You say the MOQ "can split it into biological and social
excellence, but if Excellece=Quality the MOQ splits it into
Dynamic and Static and then "quarters" the static part. .
But for you too Paul, is/was Rhetoric an intellectual endeavor?
ZMM describes the coming of SOM and whether you accept the
SOLAQI or not SOM is intellectual value. The Sophists were the
last defenders of the old Social reality not any Intellectual
forerunners and Rhetorics was their "tool".
PIRSIG (ZMM p.391)
"Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric.
Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient
Greece. That is so historically, and that is so by any application of
common sense. The poetry and the myths are the response of a
prehistoric people to the universe around them made on the basis of
Quality. It is Quality, not dialectic, which is the generator of
everything we know."
Here Pirsig says that Dialectics is the parent of logic (SOM) and
that it comes from the mythological past by way of Rhetorics,
(intellect out of society in moqish) thus the Sophists who were
Plato's scapegoats could not be "intellectuals". If the Sophists
had been the ones that confronted social value THAT conflict
would have been central in Pirsigs presentation. But - no - it was
Plato vs Sophism.
And one thing more. Just as ZMM and the its Aretê=Quality is
Pirsig looking back on the events in Old Greece, so is LILA
looking back on ZMM and gives it a different content.
> Bo said:
> I seem to be the only one (Mati exempted) to see that the MOQ
> rearranges EVERYTHING and leaves a new world in its wake.
> Paul:
> It is what Pirsig has called Dynamic Quality that leaves everything in
> its wake, not the MOQ. The MOQ is among the intellectual patterns that
> are left in its wake.
Yes, once you have accepted the MOQ premises DQ does. It's
just like God becomes everything after you have become a
believer.
> Bo said:
> It requires a little juggling, but the important first step is to see
> that intellect is a static level and as blind to the Quality context
> as the rest of the levels.
> Paul:
> Here, BoMOQ departs from Pirsig's MOQ. Dynamic Quality pervades all
> static patterns, including intellectual patterns; it is the continual
> source of them and the source of change in them. The Sophists sought
> to maintain an understanding of the relationship between static
> quality and Dynamic Quality but lost the struggle with Plato who
> confused Dynamic Quality with static intellectual quality. In Lila,
> Pirsig suggests that the Hindus succeeded where the Sophists
> ultimately failed:
The Sophists knew as little of the quality context as Plato did. A
metaphysics like the MOQ reaches back and rearranges
everything in its picture. It is from that point of view we see this
context. It delivers an unpreceded powerful explanation, but to
say that the past saw things this way is nonsense. A nonsensical
is that of Plato "confusing" things. He represented the intellectual
level and that one is supposed to be better that the social value
of the Sophists. ...but from there is a view greater than intellect.
Constantly IMO.
Bo
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