Bodvar, Arlo, SA, see below > [Chris] > Because if you think about it, the logic that we have built and that > is based on this idea of subjects and objects grows naturally from > this point - when people starts to make this distinction. > > [Arlo] > I think there are undeniable global similarities from the moment > where symbols became contemplatable "things-in-themselves". Written > language is one, the codification of symbols into an abstract, but > logical, system. The "self" is another, as I don't think you can > point to any post-intellectual culture and see an absense of "what am > I?, why am I here?", fundamental philosophical questions. Following > this is a codification of laws, and the desire to "record history". > All these things owe their origins to the moment when symbols became > objects to be analyzed themselves. > > [Chris] > Now, I also think that the variations in how this rationality is > constructed has to do with the development of the social level, and > how strong it is. > > [Arlo] > Again, absolutely. The "I" varies from culture to culture. Pirsig > describes this in ZMM. "Thus, in cultures whose ancestry includes > ancient Greece, one invariably finds a strong subject-object > differentiation because the grammar of the old Greek mythos presumed > a sharp natural division of subjects and predicates. In cultures such > as the Chinese, where subject-predicate relationships are not rigidly > defined by grammar, one finds a corresponding absence of rigid > subject-object philosophy." (ZMM)
> Pirsig has also talked about how ZMM was not seen as such a > monumentous book in Japan because their culture did not have the > sharp S/O dualism, and so "they got it" and saw the book as pretty > much common sense. (This was on Ant's website at one point, I can > find the link if you want). Yes, I have read it, quite interesting, and worth examining. > This is why Einstein considered the "I" an "optical delusion of > consciousness". With the advent of intellectuality, we have the > advent of the "I", but we also have different metaphysical responses > to that "I", and one is the S/O dualism that underscored western > intellectual development. This is why I disagree with Bo, I don't > think the intellectual level is inherently SOL, I think it can be but > that depends on the social-cultural foundations upon which it is > built (this underscores the totality of intellectual patterns, not > just the "self" pattern). This is very valid stuff. But might it not be hypostasised that the rationalism that evolved from the Greek cultures is in a sense the "purest" S/O divide. I don't mean to sound Eurocentric, though that ship might have sailed long ago, but the thought is worth investigating. If it were so, that S/O thinking at any given time and at any given place would start of a development towards "pure logic" or whatever one wishes to call it, then we might explain the variations in terms of how much the cultures that this thinking evolve in affects it. So, for example, I'd say that there were some S/O thinking in India around 500BC, there may have been a quite widespread notion of thoughts as "entities in themselves" as you put it, but this thought pattern - this way of interpreting Quality as we would say - was very much affected by the social levels interpretations of Quality, and if the social level, the culture, were too strong it might, well, put its mark on the development of rationality. So as not to give people the chance to judge me as imperialist I might also add, that if this is a valid way of enterpreting the whole of it, then there is nothing to say that we here have a "pure" rationality either, since a rationality must grow in whatever environment contains it. - Trying to keep an "open mind" =) Bodvar, what is your take on this? 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/
