[gav]
> hey heather et al,
> interesting questions re: what is philosophy and who
> is it for.
> according to the MOQ philosophy is for everybody.
> philosophy is to intellect what the world cup is to
> football...
> the idea that philosophy is solely for universities
> is as false now as it was in nietzsche's day. he
> recognised that university was primarily for the
> preservation of knowledge not its generation...that
> is art's domain.
> university could become more dynamic in the future.
> i think this will happen if the university becomes
> more of a decentralized institution, interacting
locally
> and directly with the community. i think something
> like this has been happening in cuba for a while
> now.
The university does have this disconnect from
experiencing society, and actively partaking in
generating something pragmatic in society. The
university is, for the most part, a place of ideas,
but how to apply those ideas and an active,
established way in which the university is applying
those ideas with society is lacking. The university
is full of ideas, but then once the classroom work is
over, then that's it. Science courses do lab work,
field work, but what of applying these isolated
activities to society. This seems to be the Middle
Ages European Christian monastery. The monastery was
isolated from society, but then some monks began to
exit the monastery and apply their artistic
intellectual pursuits with the outside community.
Instead of monasteries being isolated havens for monks
to cut themselves off from the world, they began to
make efforts to use their wisdom and apply it. This
happened with buddhist monasteries, too. They grew
isolated from the rest of society, collected much
material wealth, and so many monks cut themselves off
from the rest of society the Chinese Emperor Wuzong
closed down some of the monasteries. This was a major
showing of Zen's ability to improvise and keep with
present events. Zen was able to survive this
emperor's dictates due to Zen's ability to practice in
society. You can grind grains at the mill and be a
Zen monk. This is also how Amerindian became
interesting to Pirsig, I believe. You could go on a
vision quest and be involved in dynamic ceremonies,
and still have a family, hunt, and make sure the
garden was getting enough water.
The question I originally had for McWatt was how
did the MoQ make it into the university to be taught?
How did he get a Ph.D. to teach the course? Is it
only at one university? Will it spread to other
universities? While we're on the topic, another
question I have is, how does the MoQ university course
intend to reach out into society?
woods,
SA
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