David -- > There are several key misconceptions at work in your questions here. > The "unknown" you refer to is only conceptually or intellectually unknown > but it is known in a different way. It's a distinct category of empirical > reality, one usually overlooked or dismissed as unimportant by traditional > philosophy - even traditional empiricists. This conceptually unknown is > what Pirsig calls the pre-intellectual experience and what James calls > pure experience. Dewey talks about it in terms of the unique "peculiar > quality" of the total situation. It is accounted for in the MOQ and is > called > dynamic quality. The subsequent discussions about this experience is an > experience of a different sort. In the MOQ this would be called static > quality, > hopefully and more specifically, static intellectual quality. James also > uses > the terms static and dynamic but what makes that so interesting, I think, > is that Pirsig arrived at these terms independently and only later > discovered > the parallel.
You're right in that what Pirsig and James call "pre-intellectual" or "pure" experience is experience of a different sort. In fact, it is not experience at all. Experience is always conceptual (i.e., intellectually and objectively perceived). As a psychologist, James should have been more precise in his epistemological terminology. This is why I refer to pure Value as pre-intellectual "sensibility" rather than experience. [Ham, previously]: > It is obvious that Pirsig's own pronouncement of his philosophy as > "not just atheistic but anti-theistic" has been taken to mean that there > is > no metaphysical reality, and that whatever is "unknown" cannot be > significant because it is inexperiencable. This of course limits the MOQ > to experiential knowledge, denying the ineffable, and reducing the > Oneness of Eastern mysticism to an amalgam of empirical patterns. [DMB]: > To the extent that a theistic god is not knowable in experience, yes, > the MOQ would exclude that too. But the MOQ's radical empiricism > also demands that mystical experience can't be ignored. And the pure > experience or pre-intellectual reality is extremely congenial to such > claims. > In fact, the word "ineffable" refers to an experience that can't be > properly > conveyed with just a conceptualized or verbalized explanation and this is > just what pre-intellectual means. I think its not just a co-incidence that > so many descriptions of mystical experience include reference to an > undivided whole or as you put it, the Oneness. It is known directly and > empirically, but not conceptually. I disagree only with your statement that Oneness can be known empirically. Only experience is empirical. The sense of pure Value is the essence of man, but it is not Oneness. The individual turns value into experience -- actually "abstracting" it differentially for itself, thereby reducing (negating) its essential otherness (the essent) to objective being. [DMB, expressing his animus]: Of course I'd be sad too if my momma went down on Egyptians. I have a friend who confuses humor with cleverness. I can manage to laugh with him, but it isn't one of his more endearing traits. In your case, it's not cleverness but just plain lewdness. No, I don't think it's funny, and at my age I'm not easily shocked. Whatever motivates you to spout such garbage on a public forum is probably best ignored. As far as I'm concerned you've fired a blank pistol. Anyway, thanks for providing me the opportunity to clarify the clarification. (Now go wash your mouth out with soap.) --Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
