New Year Greetings Ham, Ham: > Categorizing values into biological, > social and intellectual is problematic because the process of > categorization > is itself intellectual.
I don't know what's "problematic" about intellectual. Isn't your Philosophy of Essence intellectual? Does is not categorize? Ham: > Besides, there is no need to organize Value > into > categories. Value isn't a tri-partite system like the French > Revolutionary > motto "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". > In fact, value is infinitely differentiated in experiential reality. > There > are sensory values, moral values, rational values, aesthetic values, > cultural values, academic values, culinary values, musical values, etc., > so > that defining value as a triadic axiom is not only epistemologically > unsound > but philosophically deceptive. It's a metaphoric scheme invented by > Pirsig > to circumvent the fundamental subject/object duality. Well, yes and no. It's invented by Pirsig, true. But not specifically with the purpose of circumventing SOM. Rather, with the purpose of explaining the world better than SOM can. So, your list of values falls neatly into Pirsig's moral levels -- sensory (biological), rational (intellectual), aesthetic (Dynamic), cultural (social plus intellectual), academic (intellectual), culinary (biological), musical (Dynamic). Moral values, of course, subsume all levels. > Ron is right that a culture is achieved by adapting individual > (biological?) > values to conform with a collective (socially moral) system. You can't > judge the morality of a culture by its "intellect" any more than you can > judge the quality of a flower by its color. If intellect is to be the > dominant value in existence, then what value does the biological human > being > have? Man isn't fabricated out of intellect, nor can he "reason" his way > into existence. Clearly we need biological and chemical processes to > become > aware of ourselves and experience a world external to us. Rationality and > value-sensibility are the attributes which make man the dominant creature > in > the universe, whether his activities and achievements are evaluated > individually or in terms of his cultural history. The MOQ is clear in stating that higher levels depend for their existence on the lower ones. As for judging a culture by it's intellect, wouldn't you agree that a culture that protects an individual's right to speak freely (an intellectual value) is superior to one that doesn't? (A rhetorical question no doubt.) Best wishes for a most happy New Year for you and yours. Ham. Platt 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/
