All MD.
This post has been brewing - fermenting perhaps - with me for a
long time. It's about Pirsig's "Quality/MOQ" statement that some
take as self-evident, but IMO goes against the grain of the MOQ.
The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be
separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about.
(Pirsig's "Summary")
I must start with the very beginning. In ZAMM (Chapter 20,
page243) Pirsig draws a diagram of SOM with a reality "box" on
top that spawns the subjective/objective dichotomy, but the point is
that SOM has no reality ahead of the subjective and objective pair.
The true SOM diagram looks like this.
Subjective Reality - slash - Objective Reality
Under it is the MOQ diagram that looks like this
Quality
|
Dynamic Quality - slash - Static Quality.
(pre-intellectual) (intellectual or S/O)
(it's really Romantic/Static, but for the sake of simplicity)
This seemingly looks OK, but is also wrong. See below
Now, over to LILA (page 372)
The second of James' two main systems of philosophy,
which he said was independent of pragmatism, was his
radical empiricism. By this he meant that subjects and
objects are not the starting points of experience. Subjects
and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived
from something more fundamental which he described as
"the immediate flux of life [.....] what the Metaphysics of
Quality adds to James' pragmatism and his radical
empiricism is the idea that the primal reality from which
subjects and objects spring is value.
OK, if so the first (ZAMM) diagram actually should have looked like
this:
DYNAMIC QUALITY -slash - STATIC QUALITY
(intellectual or S/O)
In the complete MOQ the static range is enlarged with the four
levels where intellect comes last.
Not the said faulty one:
Quality
|
Dynamic Quality - slash - Static Quality.
(pre-intellectual) (intellectual or S/O)
where Dynamic Value looks like a sub-set of a still more "Primal
Value". Hence the Dynamic Quality/Static MOQ statement that has
done so much harm.
NB.
If Pirsig had meant that thee top box(es) were to disappear after
the splits all would have been fine - SOM would have been the S/O
and the MOQ would have been the DQ/SQ - but as it is the top
boxes remain and has created the said Quality/MOQ
"metaphysics" that seemingly override the MOQ.
NB 2
For DMB who is out to stop all "distortions" of the MOQ I must
haste to add that this has nothing to do with the SOL interpretation
of the intellectual level. And for Marsha who think there is some
"sanction committee" it's only our sense of logic that makes us
spot weak points and try to repair them. Hope my diagrams comes
through in a readable form.
Bo
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/
