Bo said: SOM has made language into a subjective, secondhand reflection of the objective, reality, consequently to be reality Quality must be pre-language and as the MOQ - as a written document - is banished to the language realm. But this is to let SOM in by the back door and resembles another dubious statement, namely that the MOQ is an intellectual pattern. ...Young Phaedrus quit the philosophy course after discovering that academical philosophy is SOM through and through, but old Pirsig seems willing to compromise the MOQ to be let inside the once despised Church of Reason (philosophology). But can that be done? To academical philosophy all theories are "intellectual" i.e. created by minds and received by minds and to a metaphysics that rejects the mind/matter split it looks like "hara-kiri".
dmb says: I'm going to expand my criticism. I've already been saying that you don't understand the MOQ but now I'm going to say that you don't understand SOM either. The way you construe it, rejecting SOM is not just an attempt to solve the philosophical problems that arise from it (such as the mind-body problem) but rather a matter of rejecting all kinds of useful intellectual distinctions. I mean, it looks like you would construe the MOQ as rejecting the very existence of mind. And you are WAY to quick to dismiss every philosopher as a SOM philosophologist. That's just anti-intellectual. It's paralyzing. It's a conversation stopper. Plus, as I've tried to explain several times, it's just plain wrong. As usual, William James would be exhibit "A" in the case. He is an anti-SOM academic philosopher. And this if you look at what he did it should be clear that one can be opposed to SOM while still maintaining the distinction between concepts and reality. If you look at what he did it is completely obvious that he does exactly that. And you don't even need to go off and read James' books, although it sure wouldn't hurt. Look again, for nth time, at what Pirsig says in chapter 29 of Lila. "The second of James' two main systems of philosophy ..was his RADICAL EMPIRICISM. By this he meant that subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more fundamental which he described as 'the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.' In this basic flux of experience, the distinctions of reflective thought, such as those between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them. Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical; it logically precedes this distinction.In his last unfinished work, SOME PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY, James has condensed this description to a single sentence: 'There must alwasy be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing'. Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedurs had used for the basic subdivision of the MOQ." This is not a matter of sneaking SOM in through the back door. Quite the opposite. He's using the distinction between concepts and reality to show that subjects and objects are concepts rather than reality. It's incorrect to equate the "pure experience" of radical empiricism with the objective reality of SOM for exactly this reason. But that's what you keep doing, repeatedly. You're converting this alternative back into SOM when in fact the whole point is to adopt this as an alternative to SOM. And if the academic world is SOM through and through, then how do you explain the fact that I recently took a class on pragmatism at the University and we read about, wrote about and discussed this anti-SOM stance throughout the semester? I mean, as a student I can testify to the fact that SOM is under attack and has been for a long time. It still tends to dominate in the sciences because, for the most part, it works. But I'm telling you for the nth time that this just isn't the case in the philosophy department. James isn't the only one either. Dewey, Heidegger, Nietzsche and even Rorty all reject it in their own ways. I've discussed with non-famous professors and students too. You certainly don't have to take my word for it. You could read this stuff for yourself. Why in the world would you simply ignore it? Do you imagine that I'm just lying or dreaming or what? Jeez, this kind of stubborn, self-imposed ignorance just makes me crazy. I'm trying to be kind about it and exercise some patience. I've given you names and book titles and explanations too many times. Now it's up to you. I'm burned out on it and dangerously close to saying something I'll regret. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_70faster_032009 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/
