At 05:08 PM 3/6/2009, you wrote:
Marsha, Platt, DMB [David Swift mentioned) --
On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 Marsha said (to David Swift):
Philosophizing indeed, and with such a distinguished list as Hobbes,
Hume, Locke and Kant. It's hard to believe there would be exact
agreement between these philosophers, especially in regards to a
word like 'feeling' with its many definitions and multiple layers
of connotation. Maybe you can offer some quotes as evidence to
establish their agreement of usage and definition. ...'Feeling'
like all sq is sometimes conventionally useful and has a
beauty of its own.
This led David into a query about the existence of 'TiTs' which has
little, if any, relevance to Marsha's statement. However, DMB
chimed in with a comment that does:
I think that's right. Feelings and instincts would probably be a static
biological response to DQ. Hume was an empiricist and so is Pirsig
but there is an important distinction between the traditional forms of
empiricism and the radical empiricism of the MOQ. The former is
also called sensory empiricism because it holds that the external
objective world comes to us through the senses, through the sense
organs, and it does so from within the assumptions of subject-object
metaphysics. The radical empiricism of William James, which is
adopted by the MOQ, differs from this by both rejecting the
metaphysical assumptions and by expanding the notion of what
counts as empirical evidence. In traditional empiricism we experience
reality through the senses but in radical empiricism experience is reality.
Thomas Hobbes was not only an empiricist but a "monarchist" who
advocated total submission of the individual to the authority of the
state. Since his writing is formidable, I've quoted this paragraph
from SparkNotes to summarize his mechanistic philosophy:
"Hobbes believed that all phenomena in the universe, without
exception, can be explained in terms of the motions and interactions
of material bodies. He did not believe in the soul, or in the mind
as separate from the body, or in any of the other incorporeal and
metaphysical entities in which other writers have
believed. Instead, he saw human beings as essentially machines,
with even their thoughts and emotions operating according to
physical laws and chains of cause and effect, action and
reaction. As machines, human beings pursue their own self-interest
relentlessly, mechanically avoiding pain and pursuing
pleasure. Hobbes saw the commonwealth, or society, as a similar
machine, larger than the human body and artificial but nevertheless
operating according to the laws governing motion and collision."
The statement that caught my attention in the MercuryNews.com review
of Denis Dutton's "The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human
Evolution" is this one which quotes the author:
"'A lot of what counts as philosophy is explaining and justifying
fundamental human intuitions', including 'intuitions about the
beautiful and the ugly.' The problem has been that philosophy
'doesn't ask where the intuitions come from.'"
I don't particularly like the term "intuitive" in reference to
esthetic realization, as it conveys the idea that "feelings" are
intellectually conceived formulations, whereas they are emotional in
nature and "intellectual feeling" is an oxymoron. The feeling of
pain, as described in Pirsig's legendary "hot stove" analogy, for
example, is anything but an intellectual experience.
Platt, who has actually read Dutton's book, was a bit lukewarm in
his appraisal of it:
Interesting if somewhat pedantic. To a Darwinian everything is
explained by evolution, just as to an MOQian everything is
explained by Quality. But, I think anyone interested in the arts
will find the book worthwhile
The point I'd like to make is that the emotional response we call
"feeling" is not in any way deterministic or "programmed into"
sensory perception. Rather than a reflex action, emotional feeling
is the value-sensibility of proprietary (individual) awareness
itself. DMB's suggestion that "feelings and instincts would
probably be a static biological response to DQ" does not do justice
to value, while "instinct" is the wrong connotation for
value-sensibility which, above all human attributes, is what makes
value appreciation free of biological and social influences.
Again, this epistemology is foreign to MoQists who refuse to accept
the integrity of the individual subject. Instead, they continue to
think of "subjects" as interacting patterns, "feelings" being among
them. As a consequence, although the fact that we are all
value-sensible agents is self-evident to the rest of mankind, the
absurdity of "unrealized value" is lost on the Pirsigians. Perhaps
someone will be bold enough to address this issue which strangely
runs counter to the Quality thesis.
Greetings Ham,
The self is an ever-changing, collection of interrelated and
interconnected, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual,
static patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality. I think I
this addresses the individual as a conventionally convenient,
user-friendly, useful concept, but Ultimately empty of independent
(inherent) existence. The conventional self, which is a collection
of spovs, is an entity built totally of value/morality, and its
interaction with Dynamic Quality (unrealized value) is valuing. So
sure, I don't see a problem with calling the conventional self a
value-agent. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.
Marsha
_____________
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
.
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