Ron Kulp said:
I've been emersing myself in Bodvar's work on the SOL concept and I have to
say I'm with him. ...To percieve and understand any part of reality is to
percieve it as subject and object. Even our sensual recognition is based in
symbol comprehension. we are emersed in languge but also much deeper than
imagined, language is an out growth of comprehension, language communicates
this understanding. I believe Subject Object perception is base awareness
for all living organisms, I believe instinct is built on it.
dmb says:
Above all, the thing that keeps me from going along with Bodvar on this idea
is that it somehow puts the MOQ over and above all other intellectual
systems, as if it were unique in offering an alternative to the assumptions
of SOM. But now I'm pretty well convinced that Pirsig has plenty of company
in the philosophical world. Most recently, I learned that rejecting SOM is
one of the central features of classical Pragmatism. I was afraid that
William James was the only one, but apparently the desire to find
alternatives to SOM was something they all had in common. Last semester I
discovered that European thinkers like Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and
others were working on alternatives. I'd guess that all the process
philosophers reject SOM as well. Its not hard to see why a person would
think that SOM is built right into us, but this is just the power of
language and culture which gives us "common sense". And common sense is just
the mythology that still works, that people still believe in without
question. But we can trace the history of ideas and see that this view was
invented at a certain point in time. (We can't say it happened at 8:45am on
a Tuesday, but you know what I mean.) In the case of SOM, many point their
fingers at Descrates or at the Brit Empiricists. Pirsig and Heidegger take
it way back to Aristotle and Plato. There are many way to trace its
development but the point is simply that these assumptions are not inherent
in the intellect. The origins and limits of that worldview have been widely
explored with the intellect. Saying that intellect and SOM are the same is
like saying religion and christianity are the same or that science is
identical to Newtonian physics. In each case, the equation denies the fact
that alternatives are already in circulation. These kinds of equations would
unforgivably narrow the concepts of intellect, religion and science.
Ron said:
I think ...Bo then brings up the question shouldn't there be another
category within the intellectual level perhaps a subject object intellectual
and a Quality intellectual (for lack of any proper descriptive term) a
transcendent intellectual level one in which the awareness of the subject
object perception is taken into account when intellectualizing.
dmb says:
Developmental psychologist would certainly agree that there are higher
stages in cognitive function, that basic rationality is not the end of the
road when it comes to intellectual development. And it seems to me that one
would have to achieved a certain level to even begin to analyze and compare
metaphysical systems, but it seems to me that the difference between SOM and
the MOQ can be seen most plainly in their content. I mean, the MOQ isn't a
deeper, more profound version of SOM. The kind of mind that can grapple with
philosophical issues can grapple with Pirsig's ideas just as well. I'd
certainly agree that there is a mystical element in the MOQ and that
mysticism can't be fully appreciated through intellect alone (what can,
really?), but even that is presented in a philosophical form. Besides,
pragmatism is an option for those who get spooked by mysticism. Pirsig is
certainly one of them and they've been bashing SOM since the 1870s.
Thanks.
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