Hey Ron, Ron said: My central contention is the ability to create an objective argument which rests squarely on the agreement of the treatment of terms, nouns to be specific. It is the anchor of logic. One standard which ultimately changed the way we conceive of things. If nouns did not refer to tangible entities logical arguments could not be made with any certainty. This is where the big argument lies and has lied from my point of view, between Aristotle and Plato (or the contrasts with their schools of thought) the truth may be arrived at contextually through dialectic verses truth as a universal ideal.
Matt: Is there research literature on this subject you're thinking of? Ron had said: What Pirsigs SOM picks out is just this ontological method of the treatment of nouns representing static entities. Matt said: I read this as the suspicious "a philosophy underpins our grammar/language" claim. I don't think this is a good idea, and I'm not so sure it is clear that Pirsig agrees with you either. I will grant you, though, that on the score of Pirsig exegesis, Pirsig's position is conflicted (i.e., muddy). Ron said: I'm not a wagering man but I'd be willing to bet that this is where he does posit the origin of our cultural philosophies. It's at this point where he places the origin of the intellectual level of our culture. Philosophy certainly existed before Plato, as did intellect. The important part for Pirsig in regard to MoQ is the origin of SOM. which does lie in philosophy. The philosophy of truth finding as an ideal in a democratic state. Quality Matt. they were going after Quality. Matt: Pirsig does point at Greece at this time, but what I've been struggling for some time with is what exactly Pirsig meant. That's where my uncertainty lies. We all claim understanding of what Pirsig meant, but it is a contentious issue between most of us as to what SOM is, what the intellectual is, and what Pirsig thinks started in Greece. Because Pirsig is not new _at all_ when pointing to Greece as the beginning of Western culture. The trick is differentiating what Pirsig is saying from what others are saying, and there have been a lot of different answers as to what happened. My main concern is that philosophers have often pointed to Greece and said, "Hey, we all know ancient Greece is a (if not _the_) cultural anchor of the West, and they did create philosophy, so hey, the creation of philosophy must be what the West did that was wonderful," or some such nonsense. You find it all the time in histories of philosophy, especially ones from the first part of this past century and before. "Ontological method"? "Treatment of nouns representing static entities"? These are formulations that I, at least, don't think obviously pick out positions of Pirsig, and so require a bit of interpretive work. I'm not saying you don't have a case to make in expositing Pirsig, I just don't easily see it. Matt said: What I call anti-Platonism is the suggestion that we rethink the idea that there _is_ -an- "issue of Being" at all. Ron said: I think it is an important issue to take up. To exist seems to be the only certainty we can hang our hat on. The nature of this existence seems to be another topic, one raised again by Descartes mind/matter which I feel is every bit as much an anthropic extension as Plato's theory of forms. The theory of forms is a modulation of the axiom of whole numbers. Mind/ matter seems to be a modulation of Platonic ontology. what we are left with are two fallacious assumptions on top of one another creating the illusion of representationalism and the paradoxes and logical justifications that emerge from those assumptions. Matt: You say the "issue of Being" is an important issue to take up, and then immediately differentiate between the certainty of existence and the nature of this existence. I think pragmatist anti-Platonism is coextensive with taking existence to be the one thing we are certain of, not thinking "Being" is an issue, and being able to form antirepresentationalist philosophies. We can formulate these philosophies in terms of "Being," but I think being sufficiently antirepresentationalist means formulating answers to the issue that Plato and Aristotle probably would've thought were besides the point, or not really answers at all. Matt said: The problem with Platonism is not that "truth is a universal" (which has several different connotations, not all bad), the problem with Platonism was the suggestion that there is an epistemological method that would tell us when a belief is not only justified, but also true. This is the dialectic. Ron said: Yes but that method was driven by the belief in arriving at an absolute solve. That dialectic truth was a universal concept to arrive at in the theatre of social justice in a democratic state. Plato saw that this plainly was not the case with Socrates and set out to change that by reducing truth to existence. He found if one could establish truth in the verifiability of the existence of entities (objects) It would lay the ground work for the same universally verifiable truth in statements. Matt: I'm not sure I follow you. For one, you say, "Yes, but...," but I'm not sure how what fills in that ellipsis differs exactly from what I said. And I'm not sure at all about what you say Plato was up to. Ron said: I think Pirsig takes up the important re-affirmation of truth in "being" that Plato and Descartes cite as the foundation of certainty. Matt: This is interesting. I'm not sure I can exactly go along, but it might be an interesting parallel. Let me articulate the truth of the above as I see it (partly because I'm not exactly sure what you are suggesting). Plato found "truth" in "being" in large part because the Forms were Reality for Plato (I think Owen Barfield's talk about "original participation" and Julian Jaynes' contention about the evolution of mind flow into this partly, though I think both are a bit wrong on the details). So Plato's dialectic naturally led directly to reality as it is in itself. I think pointing out that Pirsig wants to return to this kind of direct connection to reality that was natural to Greek philosophy is right. This is why Richard Rorty argues (at the beginning of his Philosophy and Mirror of Nature) that the mind/body problem isn't a Greek problem, but peculiarly modern. But Descartes, on this story, was the beginning of something different on exactly this score. Descartes pit the mind between us and reality. So I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Matt said: I guess I'm beginning to lose hold of what you're suggesting. Is it something like "Platonic ontology/grammar created SOM, which in turn created positivistic materialism--which wouldn't be bad if the philosophers touting materialism weren't arrogant representationalists"? Ron said: That's about the ring of it Matt, I feel the whole thing rests on the Platonic Ontology of nouns representing physical entities. Which is the founding cornerstone of formal Greek logic. I believe the concept was borrowed and applied from mathematics axioms, consequently this influenced mathematics by introducing deductive reasoning to Greek method. Something that became a matter of course to the thinkers of the middle ages to Descartes and to the analytic method creating not so much an arrogance as an unperceived naivety of representational materialism. Your Platonism If I have you right. Because the Christian church adopted much of this philosophy and having survived the dark ages the concepts became re-introduced to the western world only this time it was founded in the church which touts unquestioning faith and uses Greek grammar and reason. Matt: Hmm. If I rang up some qualms for this they'd go like this: 1) I think the idea of "nouns representing physical entities" is independent of an ontology. Or rather, it is independent of Platonic ontology. Even if I'm convinced that Plato created an ontology that created the idea of nouns representing physical entities (I've never heard one way or the other and can't think of anything for or against the idea), that doesn't mean that the two are coextensive. I think a good part of the history of philosophy has been learning to differentiate between the parts of our Greek inheritance that are necessary and the parts that have been factitiously asserted as necessary. And--of course all depending on what we exactly mean by "Platonic ontology"--I'm banking that grammar isn't (at least anymore) dependent on our specifically philosophical views. On the other hand, of course, ontology-in-general as coextensive with grammar-in-general: that is more my post-linguistic turn taste. 2) I don't know about "nouns representing physical entities" as the founding cornerstone of formal Greek logic. To my limited knowledge, Aristotle was pretty much the beginning and end of the formalization of logic, and I don't remember anything about nouns and physical objects. (In fact, the modern notion of a "formal logic" means a pattern of reasoning that doesn't specifically refer to anything in particular at all--that's what makes it formal.) 3) I'm not so sure about the easy line of an "unperceived naivety of representational materialism." I think the history of ontological theories is importantly more nuanced than being able to easily attribute materialism to Descartes. You can, but I think you need to tell a pretty good story about how what your picking out evolved. (By the by, what I pick out by Platonism is more like just the "representational" part, and not the "materialism" part at all.) Ron had said: I think the tell tale sign is their openness to alternative ways of thinking. If they are close minded and absolute in their beliefs that their way of thinking is THE way, then you have a SOMite on your hands. I can usually pick this out after a polite conversation. Matt said: Mmm, I don't know about this way of picking out Platonists. You're talking about something that can occur in any particular person, independent of their philosophical views, a kind of willingness and curiosity to explore other things. Ron said: I term that as a philosophical view, the entire outlook and the conduct of their everyday life. My philosophical views shape my values to a large extent. From belief to ethics. If you hold a particular Philosophic point of view and they do not influence your actions then I'd say your views are hollow and meaningless. I really don't think you can say you have that point of view if you do not have the beliefs to support it in the Pragmatic sense of the terms. Your beliefs may be justified intellectually whereas another's would tend more in the social aspect of justification. But they are philosophies non-the-less. The distinction I believe is between intellectual justification and social justification of philosophical belief. Matt: Yeah, most of my qualms about this were laid out in response to SA's similar, though softer view. You say your philosophical views shape your values, and enunciate the view that if one's philosophical views don't lead to action (and vice versa) than you are, basically, a kind of hypocrite. Personally, I think the relationship between philosophical views and action is too complex and subtle for easy movement. Sometimes we think we are enunciating what we've articulated as our belief. Oftentimes we are, I've found (and I think history bears out), wrong. And sometimes, it is unclear what the correct action corresponds to a belief (after all, what action is stipulated by our understanding of formal logic?). I have a very narrow definition of what counts as a "philosophical view," and I do that because I think cultural evolution has produced a situation in which the inferential relationship between beliefs and actions is far more complex than when Socrates said that one cannot knowingly do the wrong thing. 2500 years ago, I think it was easy to think the philosophy led directly to action (like in Plato's Republic). Now, I think it is good that it doesn't. These are minority views here, but I tend to think that the very idea of "reflection" that Plato and Aristotle were parroting were designed exactly to postpone action, rather more than the Greeks who condemned Socrates to death. Ron said: I think they are intertwined, cultural situations create philosophical views and philosophical views create cultural situations. They are distinguishable parts of a whole. Representational of the social/intellectual distinction of Pirsigs levels. Matt: I think the two are distinguishable, I think they are intertwined, I think they inform each other, but I don't think they are easy to move between. And I don't think Pirsig's levels are a good analogue to the distinction between culture and philosophy. Our difference over _that_ probably has a good deal to do with our other differences (over the notion of Platonic ontology and of philosophies being usefully described as the subterranean architecture of our minds). Matt _________________________________________________________________ The i’m Talkathon starts 6/24/08. For now, give amongst yourselves. http://www.imtalkathon.com?source=TXT_EML_WLH_LearnMore_GiveAmongst 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/
