Ham, Magnus, All.
On 3 April:
Ham had said
> > I'm introducing a new topic, because I think it's the crux of our
> > problem with Pirsig's Quality thesis.
snip,snip..
> > We talk about higher levels evolving out of lower levels, only to
> > dominate the lower levels, as if man were just a passive bystander
> > of a cosmic play.
Magnus:
> Yes, man *is* just a bystander. You can never get a MoQer to say
> anything different. You must first of all acknowledge that we disagree
> here. Not keep claiming it as if everyone must agree with you.
Bo now:
I had begun on a reply to Ham, but see that there have arrived
other "strands" to this thread that deserve comments for instance
Magnus who passes a little lightly over the "Man the Measure"
issue that played such a major role in the evolution of the Quality
Idea in "Zen and the Art ..." (ZAMM).
In the said book Pirsig sided with the Sophists and saw Plato's
hatred of them representing SOM's hatred of Quality. He
emphasized that "Man" does not correspond to modern day
subjectivism:
Man is the measure of all things. Yes, that's what he is
saying about Quality. Man is not the source of all things,
as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the
passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists
and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the
world emerges as a relationship between man and his
experience. He is a participant in the creation of all
things. The measure of all things...it fits. And they taught
rhetoric...that fits.
This sounds like Quality is what CREATES the world yet
"EMERGES as a relationship between man and his experience".
It does not quite add up, and I guess this quandary is the the
reason why "man" disappeared from the final MOQ of LILA.
Pirsig either had to drop Quality as reality's ground or Man, and
he kept Quality - hopefully for the below sketched reason.
The part about the Sophists is while Phaedrus was in Chicago
shortly before his breakdown. He had relative recently conceived
the Quality Idea and - we must assume - still stood with one foot
in SOM and the other in a most tentative MOQ . Now, seen from
SOM its plain that humankind is the only species that 1) has
language 2) is conscious, but by the same logic it's just as plain
that it's language that has created the concept "man" and also
that the world only exist for us - in our consciousness. SOM
leaves us confounded, whatever concept we believe is basic, it
splits along the S/O fault. It's this the MOQ sets out to resolve -
and does - by leaving the S/O divide a mere static level (the
intellectual) of it Dynamic/Static (Value) metaphysics.
Wonder if Ham follows me this far? If his Essentialism is a
Metaphysics of Man (MOM)?
Bo
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