From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Fri Apr 16 2004 - 18:33:14 BST
Hi Steve,
> I think that the misunderstanding that suggests eudamonia level for Sam
> and individual level for Platt is conceiving of the levels as types of people
> rather than types of patterns of value.
I don't think I do make that mistake, as it happens. Precisely because...
> Eudamonia and individual describe people, whereas Pirsig's intellectual
> level is a collection of patterns of value of a particluar type. When you
> think of the levels as types of patterns where intellectual patterns are
> simply patterns of thinking, then there is no need to do any renaming. There
> is no better word than intellectual to describe the sort of pattern that
> Pirsig refers to by the fourth level.
I think 'eudaimonia' describes those patterns better than intellectual. I completely accept the
point that the levels describe patterns, not people - it is a presupposition of my argument.
I think a person is a combination of all the levels plus DQ. What I think the stable pattern of
fourth level quality refers to is 'character' - and people can have more or less character, better
or worse characters. It is a feature of a person; it's not the whole person. One reason why
'individual' doesn't work quite so well as eudaimonic IMO, although it's better than intellect.
Sam
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