DMB, Matt, Great post DMB. That large middle paragraph snipped below, that ends with the quote Matt picked-up on - I find myself repeating yes, yes, me too; so where are we missing each other ... ?
I've gone through in some detail to insert how I also see it. Hope you find it constructive. > > dmb says: > > [DMB] The notion of discreteness, I think, is mostly just a matter of cranking up the volume and could otherwise be thought of as distinctness. [IG] OK. It's a matter of degree - volume if you like - but that doesn't blur what the otherwise distinct extremes are. [DMB] He's saying the lines drawn between levels marks a qualitative difference. [IG] I'm fine with that. the problems only start when we (others) try to get "defintional" about those qualitative differences. [DMB] He's saying that the difference is NOT just a matter of greater complexity or merely a matter of degree, but a difference in kind. [IG] OK again. the matter of degree is in the mixing of the kinds at play in any given real life situation, but the things being mixed are clear kinds. So not MERELY a mater of degree or complexity. Agreed. [DMB] And I think its important to realize that this is a generalization about what we observe already in the ordinary reality we all know. You know, he's classifying the all the stuff we find referenced in encyclopedia. The line drawn between the social and intellectual levels gives us the most trouble because, unlike the other lines, we don't commonly find the distinction Pirsig brings out. Think about how much of Lila is devoted to that line. Quite a lot. And its tied to countless real-life examples. I mean, the line is drawn where it is based on his observations of history and it's political conflicts, especially the conflicts between traditional beliefs and intellectual values. [IG] Agreed. This ontology - a division into distinct social and intellectual kinds - is a convenient (pragmatic) generalisation of real history - I think the difficulty arises when we start to get "prescriptive" or simply "active" about HOW to apply that historical generalisation to future situations ... At that point ... whilst the generalisation that intellectual (reasoned questioning) values outvalue traditional (social) beliefs holds well enough, we start to ask questions about exactly what intellectual values are, and which intellectual reasoning is better than other intellectual reasoning. Which itself gets more complex when pseudo-intellectual or mistaken rationalisations of traditional-cultural-ideas-in-disguise get thrown into the intellectual debate. [DMB] This happens to be the stuff I studied as an undergrad (intellectual history) and being in radio for years made me into a news junkie. This baggage might be a curse as well as a blessing, but I have no problem plugging it all into the MOQ's framework. To put it simply, it works for me. And I don't just mean I like it, but I actually use it when listening to debates, the news, or watching Sam Harris. Sometimes it works on movies and such too. And the issue of "faith" in American culture has got to be one of thee best candidates for this form of analysis. The stupidity of Victorian morals and Rigel's judgmental friends, the Scopes Monkey Trial and Hitler's Germany, the FDR intellectuals and Pirsig's anti-theism. Even if it doesn't work for you, you'd at least admit that Pirsig hopes it address the kind of issues Sam Harris is raising, no? That's how I see it. When I talk about the conflict between social and intellectual values, I'm talking about what's on the news tonight and on the ballot in November. Its about this culture right now and how it might be better in the future. [IG] Me too, different specific history, but I feel exactly the same about the applicabilty to real life, here and now based on my real experience (and baggage) too. [IG] At this point the pragmatic difficulty remains - hence the debate about flavours of (neo-)pragmatism - interpretations of Rortianism etc .... What makes a good (intellectual level) rationale - what exactly is good reasoning / rationality. It's a given that we've thrown out the low-quality faith-in-traditional-culture arguments, but even having that as a given - a lot of the history on which we are basing (immediate) future action is tangled up in that culture. How do we demonstrate, what we clearly believe, that the immediate involved / experienced / empiricism aspects of Pirsigianism is something better that cultural relativism ? (Rather than debating the attachment of such labels to other philosophers ?) Did that help ? Ian 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/
