Matt said: ...My point is that I don't think a Pirsigian approach to philosophy, where value is the root of everything, helps us out all that much when dealing with the many tangled problems of religion and ethics. What it is good for is telling us that people like Harris are full of it when they say that they have the key, the answer we've been waiting for--finally, now we can do ethics as it was meant to be done. What we have are a lot of conflicting static patterns of value.
dmb says: I don't think Harris is offering anything like "the answer we've been waiting for". Usually, "arrogant" is just what we call guys who make us feel stupid. Matt said: Even sorting out which ones are the social and which ones the intellectual won't help much. I don't think identifying countries or cultures as "social" or "intellectual" does any good because people have been making those kinds of polemical distinctions for ages and ages, and they haven't helped all that much yet. I am always baffled by the perception of many that Pirsig is quite novel in this--I'm not sure Pirsig ever thought he was very novel in this. Novelty aside, it might be a useful sorting mechanism occasionally, but it doesn't help much in arguing with anybody. dmb says: I don't think the levels are designed for their persuasive powers so I'd agree that they're not that useful in such a conversation. But I think the distinction is a good diagnostic tool when looking at the two sides, the two rival worldviews, that are usually represented in such debates. I'd also agree that its a bad idea to think of a culture or country as either social or intellectual because all cultures mix the two in various degrees. In fact, the debate between faith and reason as Sam Harris would probably be glad to have it, is a roughly a debate between the 3rd and 4th levels. I think this way of looking at it does provide some clarity about what's going on, namely each side is defending a different kind of good. This is useful at the negotiating table when one is looking to give the other guy a face-saving way out. It could even engender genuine sympathy and respect. It helps to explain what each side feels is at stake. I could go on. The point is simply that I find i t quite useful and for exactly this sort of thing too. Matt said: What I don't think anybody has really explicitly acknowledged (at least in my acquaintance) is that, while on the one hand Pirsigians enjoy claiming that Pirsig's philosophy does a great job in clarifying moral conflict, specifically in its distinction between social and intellectual levels, on the other hand, Pirsig's notion of "discrete levels" almost completely demolishes the work desired. The claim is that we should be able to tell when a social pattern and an intellectual pattern is at work, and when there's conflict, intellectual wins. But... dmb says: I'd like to acknowledge this but I really don't know what you mean. The notion of discrete levels demolishes what desired work? _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 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/
