Hi David M. On 17 Oct. you wrote: > I think I probably agree that the S/O division > plays a key role in the creation of intellect and > individualism & science in the 18th & 19th centuries.
I count my blessings, but "... key role in creating intellect" sounds as if intellect is some entity that various helpers assisted with, SOM a greater help, but I must insist that intellect IS the value of the S/O distinction, no more no less. If not this is observed it turns into a mind-like faculty. But let me point to an issue which may be the stumbling stone in understanding the SOL interpretation. DMB seemed shocked over me seeing SOM a value simultaneously with rejecting it. It is the S/O Metaphysics which is the culprit - that of seeing the S/O distinction as reality's base - while the subject/object distinction is the highest static good inside a Dynamic/Static metaphysics.. Yes, the S/O - or intellectual value - returned from its Medieval hibernating with the Renaissance and slowly worked itself upwards in the social-value dominated Europe. Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and the Bruno, Kepler and Galileo affairs were mileposts, but I would say that the French revolution and the following Enlightenment really accelerated its progress. But according to Pirsig it was not until the end of WW1 that intellect took command in the European theatre. > So I agree that you need SOM prior to reaching > MOQ. But I still see MOQ as an intellectual development > in itself, what else could it be? Well "what else could it be" reflects the notion of intellect the idea faculty where all theories big or small reside, but this is not the 4th. level's role, again, it's the value of the S/O distinction, what has brought great progress. If you can manage the mental exercise of seeing the intellect in its SOM role - when the said distinction was seen as Reality itself, it ran its course. The 18th & 19th scientists and thinkers were dead sure that the mind/matter demarcation was water- and shockproof. Then modern physics (primarily) quantum theory that shook these foundations. NB! Of course, various 19th century philosophers had questioned SOM (James, Dewey and Poincare) yes even the empiricists of the 17th. - Berkeley primarily - had done so too, but SOM ruled, only when science, the beacon of objectivity, questioned it things began to unfold. However, what's deeply wrong is to evoke these SOM-generated troubles after the S/O has been replaced by the Dynamic/Static, and speak about ideas coming before matter and such silly notions that - sad to say - Pirsig flaunts in some "Lila's Child" annotations and/or like DMB refer to the Newton-creating- Gravity example in ZAMM believing that this is relevant in the MOQ. It's disastrous. > What you say reminds me of Hegel, I was reminded > recently of this when I read Rorty describing how Hegel > saw SOM as a necessary step to overcoming the subject-object > divide. Hegel being the first person to say such a thing in those > specific terms (well German ones). Hmm, interesting. What little I know about Hegel is that he began by rejecting Kant's SOM variety the "Thing for Us (subjective) vs Thing in itself (objective) and replaced it with something resembling "man the measure", all is human - in our mind as it has come to mean - but this isn't the starting point of the MOQ. I have a Pirsig letter wherein he says that any hegelian connection with the MOQ is false, and the SOL interpretation does not contradict the MOQ basics, it only concerns the intellectual level. I will try to find Pirsig's exact words. All in my opinion. Bo 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/
