Hi Ian, Ron [Marsha mentioned] -- [Ian]: > It's all language and all language is metaphors (dead or alive) > - you can approach understanding by using it but never > arrive at a destination called definition.
[Ron]: > Since SoM only deals with concrete terms MoQ ventures into, > co-habitates and emerges within SoM principles. [Marsha]: > It's all analogy, every last bit of it. So what is an > analogy? No-thing. Inside and outside, it's > no-thing. Individual=Subjective=no-thing. Are linguistics and metaphors all that the MoQ is cracked up to be? If that's so, then how can anyone take it seriously? Why bother to understand it? I for one believe that Pirsig was on to something of philosophical significance, but never quite achieved his goal. Definitions are important, although not everything lends itself to a proper definition. On the other hand, refusing to define a fundamental term or principle used throughout a philosophical thesis is suspect. I've said many times that the essence of philosophy is the concept, not the word(s) used to define it. Quality as value, moral goodness, or worthiness works well as primary sensibility, and I believe Pirsg was correct in his epistemology of experience. The problem is that experience is proprietary to an individual, hence cannot be assumed to be the fundamental reality. Whatever 'DQ' is supposed to represent cannot logically be quality or value as these terms are universally understood. Had the author not felt metaphysics too "restrictive" to his theory, he might well have come up with a less conditional (and problematic) term for his all-encompassing source. Postmodernists deplore referring to 'God' as the primary source; yet the name is a contraction of 'Good' which is equivalent to Pirsig's Quality. Even Richard Dawkins, author of "the God Delusion", admitted to the possibility of a transcendent "intelligence" existing beyond the range of present human experience. St. Anselm defined God as "a being than which no greater can be conceived." The 10th century Arabian philosopher Ibn 'Adi postulated that since every definition mirrors an essence, God must also be one in essence. Five centuries later, Cusanus theorized that reason, plurality, and multitude allude to a unity to which neither otherness nor multiplicity is opposed. He called this unity The Infinite. I've stuck with Essence. My point is that we all crave an answer to the enigma of existence beyond factual knowledge, and unless we are nihilists who believe that life is an accident of nature, most of us hold out for a transcendent source. That Pirsig chose to include DQ in his thesis demonstrates that he did, too. Let's not be such skeptics that we reject the insight and understanding that philosophy offers us. If. indeed, the MoQ is "paralyzed", why not determine the faults and fix it? Surely the author would prefer this to skepticism. Essentially yours, Ham 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/
