> > > Marsha is a poet, artist, and devotee of New Age philosophy. There's > nothing wrong with eclecticism, except that in our search for something > different we tend to grab onto the latest fad.
And even worse, she's a girl. Plato would have scorned her also. > A philosophy of Quality (I prefer Value) is fundamental, and RMP has > provided a rationale that can make it a lasting legacy. Unfortunately, the > MoQ is flawed by the notion that Quality (Value) exists independently of a > cognizant observer, and by the omission of a primary source. My efforts to > correct these flaws have thus far met with acrimony and resentment, which is > why I'm interested in reaching "open-minded" people before they become > indoctrinated to the "official line". > Well I am a big fan of open-mindedness as well. Being a new person here, I'm fascinated by the battle lines drawn in the ether. Of course, there has to be an official line, or there wouldn't be any structure to our discussions. Your thoughts and dialogue have intrigued me and I do want to understand better. I'm also reading along these lines right now in Josiah Royce's philosophy - a life long friend and philosophical opponent of William James, who seems to be on one side of what you term the official line, and thus on the other side of me and my Royce. Dialogue! Yay! We may end up being outcasts together after all Ham. I can't say I'm excited by the "People of Quality" motto which reminds me of > the People's Party of Mao Tse-tung. Besides, unlike Marsha, I don't believe > people ARE Quality. Do you believe people HAVE Quality as opposed to BEING Quality? If so, perhaps you could look at People of Quality meaning those who are devoted to bringing it about rather than just sit around talking about it all the time. > They are only drawn to it by sensibility. I've always liked Valuism as a > title for a new philosophy. The term isn't in the dictionary but has been > used by philosophers and estheticians to describe human value-sensibility. > It might interest you to review the anonymous essay on valuism at > http://www.indval.org/IV.htm and compare it with Pirsig's moralism. It's > a novel concept of individualism presented clearly and to the point, and is > quite compatible (I think) with both the MoQ and Essentialism. Let me know > what you think. Well right off the bat I read: "Moreover, values can *only* be defined relative to individuals. Outside of a mind with preferences, goodness cannot exist." I'd say rather, Ham, individuals can ONLY be defined relative to values and that outside of value, a mind cannot exist. Even though that is the "official line" it also makes sense to me. Bummer. We may have to be outcasts along different lines. [Ham]: > There's no "inside" or "outside" to betterness because it's a Value. >> Values are proprietary to the individual and are reflected in the >> social morality of like-minded people. ... One man's "goodness" >> may be his neighbor's "evil". ... Just as all individuals are different, >> so is their sense of value. That's the relational nature of the world >> we live in. >> > > [John]: > >> Aha. THAT is why you call your philosophy tenuous. If values >> are the property of individuals then they are transitory, unreal and >> fade away when the individual dies. The only way they can persist >> is by individuals converting as many as possible to be like-minded. >> Which explains the urge to form cabals and browbeat one another >> into submission. >> > > > You've misconstrued my philosophy, John. Values aren't "the property of > individuals", they are our realization of a "greatness" beyond > individuality. Well Ham, one would assume there is going to be a lot of misconstruing in philosophical discussion. Especially near the beginning in the "getting to know you" stage. I interpreted "Values are proprietary to the individual" with values being the property of individuals. I thought that proprietary had to do with property just cuz they sound similar. I'll look it up. Hey. I was right. Would you mind clarifying your earlier statement because I think I just caught a contradiction. > We are designed as value-sensible creatures so that our aspirations and > concepts can transcend the limitations of differentiated existence. > Actually, Mr, Pirsig is expressing much the same idea, only he dismisses > the subjective sensibility that completes the principle. I'm not out to > "convert" anyone. A cabal wouldn't work anyway, since value realization is > intrinsic to the individual and is different for each of us. Are you a theist Ham? "We are designed" implies a designer. I respect religion, but philosophy according to Royce serves a different function than religion and has different methods. We probably don't want to go there. And boy, I bet you really clash with Arlo, given his point that meaning and thought are socially derived. I just came this morning upon Royce's discussion of self and it reinforced Arlo's points in an earlier discussion I was having with him. I'm gonna quote and paraphrase from my reading this morning and see if it is at all helpful. "That by the Self, one means a real being, common sense indeed insists. But the nature of this real being forms the topic of the greatest vacillation in all popular metaphysics... The concept of the human Self, like the concept of Nature, comes to us, first, as an empirical concept, founded upon a certain class of experiences. But the concept of the Self tends far to outrun any directly observable present facts of human experience, and to assume forms which define the Self as having a nature and destiny which no man directly observes or as yet can himself verify. If we consider first the empirical basis of the conception of the Self, and the motives which lead us beyond our direct experience in our efforts to interpret the Self, we find three different kinds of conceptions of what it is that one means by the term Self as applied to the individual man. First is the directly empirical way of conceiving the Self. In this sense, by a man's Self, you mean a certain totality of facts, viewed as immediately given. In this sense my countenance and my physical deeds, my body and my clothing, all are regarded as part of myself. If you changed or removed such facts, my view of what I am would alter. In addition to the corporeal or external Self of the phenomenal world, there is the equally empirical and phenomenal Self of the inner life, the series of states of consciousness, the feelings, thoughts, desires, memories, emotions, moods. Everywhere in the inner life, as it flits by, I observe a constantly shifting play of what I distinguish as myself, and what comes from others. The distinctions between my ideas and what is relatively foreign, empirically made, have no one rational principle. They are often founded upon the most arbitrary and unstable motives. I even voluntarily play with the distinctions of Self and not-Self -- dramatically address myself as if I were another, criticize myself and upon occasion observe myself in a relatively impersonal fashion. Ok Ham, if you're still with me here, this is where Arlo's point about society and self coincides with Royce and contradicts you. No purely rational principle guides us in defining the Self from moment to moment, but there remains a psychological principle running through all these countless facts and explaining why we always suppose, despite the chaos of experience, that the Self of our inner and outer life preserves a genuine, tho hidden to us, unity. This psychological principle is the simple one that, in us men, the distinction between Self and not-Self has a predominantly Social origin. To state the case, our empirical self-consciousness, from moment to moment, depends upon a series of contrast-effects, whose psychological origin lies in our literal social life, and whose continuance when we are alone, is due to habit, to our memory of literal social relations, and to an imaginative idealization of these relations. In origin then, the empirical ego is secondary to our social experience. My experience of my empirical self gets a certain provisional unity. But never do I observe my Self as any single and unambiguous fact of consciousness. For that, I need other. Long winded? I'll say. And that's just the FIRST conception of the self. I'll rest my brain (and yours) a bit before going on. And Kudos to Arlo! J > 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/
