Hello Squonk --
Please read the following and consider how it may apply to your Essentialism if you have the time:Let us assume the following: 1. Pirsig has identified the shared experience of 'excellence' in human affairs. 2. Following arguments presented by David Hume in his 'An Essay concerning Human understanding' he has elevated this experience to a Cosmic principle. 3. Ham has identified the shared experience of abstract intellectual discourse - specifically, concerning essence. 4. Following David Hume, Ham has elevated this experience to a Cosmic principle. If these positions can be maintained, it may also be argued that 3 and 4 are specific examples of the more general 1 and 2.
I think I know what you're getting at, but I'll give you my candid opinion based on the proposed assumptions. (I'll have something to say about the validity of the propositions later.)
Both arguments assume an "elevation of experience to a Cosmic principle", which an Essentialist would reject. There is no logic by which one may impute an attribute of human experience to 'Divine Law', such as a cosmic principle. I have made that abundantly clear in my thesis, as per the following examples:
"In the philosophy of Essence, laws and theories are accepted as constructs of the human reasoning process which do not necessarily reflect the true nature of reality." "Essence is incomprehensible from the finite perspective." "Indefinableness, as the mystics put it, traverses the limits of the indefinable in the sense of Aristotelian logic." "The specificity of conscious sensibilia, including qualitative values like Goodness, Love, and Beauty, as well as the 'dynamic' or functional constructs by which experiential entities are objectivized ... are not identifiable with the uncreated source." "Any philosophy that is founded on an existential attribute or property as opposed to a primary, undifferentiated source cannot logically claim metaphysical transcendence." "Cosmological truth is not bound by the empirical 'proofs' that support our common illusion of an objective reality."
Having said that, I don't believe any philosopher or moralist can "identify the shared experience of excellence" or any other moral quality [#1]. One may measure Excellence quantitatively, as when grading a math exam or evaluating the reliability of a motorcycle; but experience is proprietary to the self, hence has no collective identity.
As for proposition #3, I don't understand the meaning of "identified" as applied to "intellectual discourse". Are you referring to conclusions reached by a majority of the participants, such as might be tabulated in a poll? Or do you mean weighing the disparate views expressed and coming up with a mean or average opinion? (I hope you're not insinuating that I'm structuring my philosophy to appease the majority.)
In any case, Hume is right that man's understanding of God is extrapolated from finite concepts, and any descriptive interpretation of the ineffable source is invalid. I've presented my philosophy of Essence as a theory, with no claim that it is anything but a plausible hypothesis. (It isn't intended as allegory or metaphor, either.) But if it's really your assumption that I've defined a Cosmic principle on the basis of my own experience, show me an example and we can discuss it.
I hope this is the comparison you were looking for. Regards, 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/
