From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Fri Feb 13 2004 - 19:19:56 GMT
Hi Paul/Bo
I think Paul's position below with respect to
how Pirsig describes east-west thought development is bang on.
I also find Bo's use of levels/epochs both unclear and un-usefully limiting
despite also making some good points along the way, but
whilst Bo's scheme may have some good points -overall it
does not stack up -at least for me.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 2:34 PM
Subject: RE: MD The Dynamic/Static resolution.
> Bo
>
> Bo said:
> On 9 Feb. as we were discussing whether Rhetorics were a social
> level endeavour you cited Pirsig:
>
> > "The identification of rta and aretê was enormously valuable,
> > Phaedrus thought, because it provided a huge historical panorama in
> > which the fundamental conflict between static and Dynamic Quality
> > had been worked out....The resolution of this conflict in the
> > Buddhist and Vedantist philosophies is one of the profound
> > achievements of the human mind." [Lila p.347]
>
> Paul:
> We weren't discussing rhetoric here, I posted this quote because we were
> discussing your claim that saying static and Dynamic Quality existed
> before Pirsig was nonsense.
>
> Paul previously said:
> > Pirsig isn't saying that a "Quality era" to follow your
> > "intellectual era" dawned in the seventies, he is suggesting that
> > thousands of years ago, what he calls Quality, the Sophists called
> > arête, the Hindus called rta, the Taoists called Tao, the Buddha
> > called nothingness....
>
> Bo said:
> This I found having little to do with our debate
>
> Paul:
> As above. You said that it is nonsense to speak of the existence of
> Quality or of people referring to Quality before the MOQ, I was saying
> that Quality=Tao=Nothingness=Absolute, and they are all referent terms
> for something that has always been there and people have always talked
> and written about. If you don't see this, I have no idea how you can
> understand what Pirsig is writing about.
>
> Bo said:
> All in all Im' not sure how it relates to the MOQ at all where the
> static levels are supposed to cover everything. Here Pirsig speaks of
> the dynamic/static relationship in general ..and yet about a historical
> epoch and its people. What levels are these things played out at?
>
> Paul:
> The social and intellectual levels.
>
> Bo said:
> What I have come to believe is that Pirsig here reveals a Oriental
> variety of the story he tells in ZMM
>
> Paul:
> Agreed, but with an important difference in outcome.
>
> Bo said:
> Look, Phaedrus identified his Quality with the Aretê he saw displayed by
> the ancient Greeks. At that time he hadn't made the DQ/SQ slash, but
> looking back, this Greek Mythos era must have been like the one
> described in the Rta passage: One of gods upholding the MORAL order of
> the universe. That's why he later - in LILA - includes the Rta in the
> Quality=Aretê equation.
>
> Paul:
> Yes.
>
> Bo said:
> Do you see what I mean? The RT passage is Pirsig pointing to a similar
> Indian-Hindu mythological past of gods etc.
>
> Paul:
> Completely agree.
>
> Bo said:
> Now, in ZMM it was Phaedrus' frustration over SOM that triggered his
> Quality insight, thus the big question is: Was there - are there - an
> Hindu "SOM" that could have caused Oriental Phaedrus to create a
> Metaphysics of Rta?. In his letter Pirsig speaks of an Oriental
> intellectual level arrived at at the Upanisadic times (1500-500 BC)
> which is definitely later than the said Myth era.
>
> Paul:
> Here is where your SOLAQI interpretation forces you to go wrong.
> Because, to you, the intellectual level = S/O, when Pirsig, in his
> letter, says that, "the Oriental cultures developed an intellectual
> level independently of the Greeks during the Upanishadic period of
> India.." you are forced to look for an Oriental version of the search
> for "objective truth." But this didn't happen the way it did with the
> ancient Greeks.
>
> Pirsig says that the brahmanic social rituals, which protected the
> social moral order and provided "signposts" to Dynamic Quality, became
> too static. But what Pirsig is also saying is that the intellectual
> patterns emerging in the Orient did not lose this "understanding" of
> Quality that was present in their social patterns. To repeat a quote
> from last week, Pirsig notes that "...what made the Hindu experience so
> profound was that this decay of Dynamic Quality into static quality was
> not the end of the story. Following the period of the Brahmanas came the
> Upanishadic period and the flowering of Indian philosophy. DYNAMIC
> QUALITY REEMERGED WITHIN THE STATIC PATTERNS OF INDIAN THOUGHT." [Lila
> p.438]
>
> "Rta" became "dharma," a term central to Indian philosophy that
> "includes both static and Dynamic Quality without contradiction." [Lila
> p.440] The Sophists seem to have been doing the same thing with aretê
> and rhetoric until Plato and co. usurped it with dialectic.
>
> Bo said:
> A last stab at our debate. Seen from the MOQ everything must fit the
> level system and as I see it the Social era fits this Rta-Aretê-Quality
> scheme perfectly.
>
> Paul:
> I think it's wider than that. Rta-aretê-Quality all refer to a static
> (ritual, order) and a Dynamic (freedom, change) element of reality. I
> think Pirsig believes that the ancient Greeks generally paid more
> attention to the static manifestations of aretê - physical prowess,
> social status, well composed arguments than to the Dynamic source.
>
> "The meanings [of rt], grouped together, suggested something different
> from his interpretation of aretê. They suggested "importance" but it was
> an importance that was formal and social and procedural and
> manufactured, almost an antonym to the Quality he was talking about. Rt
> meant "quality" all right but the quality it meant was static, not
> Dynamic." [Lila p.435]
>
> The meaning of the word comes from a prehistoric time before intellect
> and so is heavily linked to social quality, hence the translation into
> "virtue." But words invented socially are not excluded from being used
> intellectually and so it is not necessary to say that aretê is
> restricted to being a "social era" term for Quality that still meant
> social quality when it was later used by the Sophists to refer to
> all-round excellence, including intellectual excellence. I think it is
> more that the Greek conversion of "rt" into "aretê" seems to leave it
> referring more to static quality than Dynamic Quality.
>
> Your insistence on levels as "epochs" of "different realities" that
> permanently leave behind the preceding level seems to be confusing you
> here. Remember that all intellectual terms gain their meaning socially.
> Just as all social interaction involves biological humans and all humans
> are composed of inorganic chemicals.
>
> Finally, Pirsig thinks the Orient, with their translation of "rt" into
> "rta," preserved more carefully and thus paid more attention to the
> original meaning of rt - the wider tension between static (ritual,
> order) and Dynamic Quality (freedom, change) and that, as quoted above,
> "The resolution of this conflict in the Buddhist and Vedantist
> philosophies is one of the profound achievements of the human mind."
> [Lila p.347]
>
> Bo said:
> On page 386 (Bodley Head) LILA says:
>
> "The mythos is the social culture and THE RHETORIC which the culture
> must invent before philosophy becomes possible." (my capitals)
>
> Paul:
> Yes, rhetoric is invented in social culture, initially for religious
> purposes I believe. As above, intellectual patterns begin an end in
> society and its language. I'm not disputing that. This doesn't mean that
> all rhetoric is purely social though. You seem to have a narrow view of
> rhetoric; even Aristotle saw it as a branch of practical science. Logic
> is a type of rhetoric.
>
> Bo said:
> ....and a little further down the page:
>
> "The Mythos over Logos thesis agrees with the MOQ's assertion that
> intellectual patterns are built up out of social patterns."
>
> Paul:
> Yes, mythos over logos means that intellectual patterns begin an end in
> society and its stories. What's your point?
>
> Bo said:
> And as Intellect follows Society "philosophy" means Intellect here.
>
> Paul:
> Yes, philosophy is intellectual, and the (philo)Sophists were
> philosophers:
>
> "The pre-Socratic philosophers mentioned so far all sought to establish
> a universal Immortal Principle in the external world they found around
> them. Their common effort united them into a group that may be called
> Cosmologists. They all agreed that such a principle existed but their
> disagreements as to what it was seemed irresolvable....
>
> The resolution of the arguments of the Cosmologists came from a new
> direction entirely, from a group Phædrus seemed to feel were early
> humanists. They were teachers, but what they sought to teach was not
> principles, but beliefs of men. Their object was not any single absolute
> truth, but the improvement of men. All principles, all truths, are
> relative, they said. "Man is the measure of all things." These were the
> famous teachers of "wisdom," the Sophists of ancient Greece." [ZMM
> p371-372]
>
> The Sophists resolved philosophical arguments of the Cosmologists, and
> they used rhetoric, intellectually.
>
> Bo said:
> I have driven you from one stand to the next
>
> Paul:
> You are your biggest fan.
>
> Bo said:
> ...but the more battles I win the more adherers you seem to gain.
>
> Paul:
> Maybe, as they don't see this as a "war," that's simply because they
> agree with some of my arguments. Besides, you haven't won any "battles,"
> you just ignore the ones you know you have lost and raise
> interpretational ambiguities in Pirsig's writing to keep yourself afloat
> even after he has denied the primary conclusion of your interpretation.
>
> "The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual formulation but some
> kind of other level is not clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that
> I know of that leads to this conclusion." [Robert Pirsig Sept 2003]
>
> Bo said:
> That's OK, now that you have Matthew (the Fallen Priest) with you I am
> sure to be on the right side. ;-)
>
> Paul:
> Although you say it in jest, this ad hominem mentality of yours shows up
> again and again. I think it is better if Matt's or anyone else's
> arguments stand or fall by their own merit and not be judged by the name
> on the post. Also, I don't care for the "recruitment campaign" approach
> to this forum that you seem to have adopted e.g. where you have
> applauded people simply for disagreeing with me and voiced despair for
> those "adhering" to my views. Frankly, I find it a bit messianic and
> mildly delusional - and at the very least, low quality.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
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