Matt and DMB.

Bo had said to Matt:
> > More agreement, the Sophists were part and parcel of the budding
> > intellectual level - of SOM - namely its subjectivists. "Man the
> > measure" was their credo that opposed Socrates' 
> > and Plato's objectivism, that truth was independent of man. ...What you
> > write here and in your blog may be correct, but it clutters MOQ's level
> > picture which is that before these last 500 years BC - before the
> > intellectual LEVEL - the social LEVEL ruled.

DMB had commented:
> It's pretty clear that your assertion, that the Sophist's were the
> subjective half of SOM, is explicitly contradicted here [in the text
> quote from Pirsig]. The contest between Plato and the Sophists is not a
> contest between subjective and objective truth. It's not a contest
> between social patterns and intellectual patterns either, even though
> Pirsig invokes Homer's heroes in making a case for arete as Dharma too.
> It's a contest between dynamic and static quality. 

For DMB
>From your previous comment you seem to see what's described 
by ZAMM's "Greek part" as the emergence of the intellectual level 
and if so the SOL is affirmed, I don't know why you keep 
procrastinating. When I launched it back in the nineties it was 
rejected generally, but has gained ground ever since and even 
Pirsig had to say the "original" 4th level was misconceived. But to 
amend it according to the SOL, never ...  

All who tries to apply the MOQ inevitable ends up with the 
intellect=SOM conclusion - inadvertently usually, but nevertheless. 
Look to Matt about the Greek thinkers as the "first intellectuals" 
and that the Sophists were part of the intellectual movement. If the 
the subjective horn was/is more "mean" than the objective, yes, I 
tend to see it that way, but calling it "dynamic" - no, it's static 
intellectual value.  

Even Pirsig walked into the SOL by his "intellect missing from the 
early books of the Bible" example and when he discovered the 
trap (that it was SOM that lacked) he tried the new "enlarged" 
SOM (of crocodile warnings and assurances about Javeh's 
protection) God knows what's gone into you (all) the SOL 
interpretation cries from the heavens, but the rejection of it is 
mandatory, either by feigning not to "understand" it or cooking up 
far-fetched objections     

Matt said:

> Either way, let me say this in relation to Pirsig's assertion that the
> intellectual level was being created in Greece, and--on this
> supposition--there were only three operative levels previously. 

Right, in a way Pirsig asserts it. ZAMM does not wield the final 
level MOQ, but even its proto-moq that only had one level - the 
intellectual - equates it with SOM. This proves that Pirsig at that 
time was a SOL-ist and it's from there I have it, no personal erratic 
idea of mine. That the social level had been "leading edge" - in 
Europe -  till then is self-evident.  

> I think Bo's continued assertion that SOM is the intellectual level is
> wrong on a historical and conceptual level.  He concedes that it is
> wrong on the textual level, 

As said Pirsig equates SOM and "intellect" in ZAMM.

> so there's very little point in emphasizing that, but on the side of
> history, I don't think anything like the modern subjective/objective
> distinction existed in Greek thought (though its original impetus is
> clearly traceable to there) and to characterize as Bo does is too
> excessively misleading, to the point of being counterproductive.

All philosophers and historians point to this time as a great 
watershed in history, mostly it's the usual "democracy", but some 
see deeper upheavals of which democracy and science were mere 
fallouts (Owen Barfield f.ex) Pirsig's however is the grandest and 
most convincing interpretation. 

And of course the subject/object term were still far into the future 
(not to speak about mind/matter) yet the idea is that the notion of 
principles deeper that the old mythological reality triggered a new 
attitude. Its first fallout was Socrates' Appearance/Truth, then 
Plato's Shadows/Ideas and finally Aristotle's Form/Substance. The 
first indicating the fleeting, transient element, the latter the eternal 
permanent one. This split to become the fundament of the 
Western SOM-based culture. (The East to have transcended it) 
Now so cemented that you folks don't even manage to imagine 
yourself outside of it.

End of part 1

Bo  


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