Greetings, Ron --
On 12/21/09 at 10:46 AM, you wrote to Bodvar, quoting Pirsig:
"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called empiricism.
It claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses
or by thinking about what the senses provide."
A reasonable interpetation may be:
Dynamic experience arises from the senses, Static experience,
by thinking about what the senses provide.
Again, in the context of the term "empirical" the primacy of the dynamic
holds the meaning in regard to being "more" empirical than a subject
object interpretation based on a static intellectual assumption of a
physically objective starting point. In other words value is more
empirical
than objective reality.
"Empirical" is defined by the dictionary as "relying on experience or
observation alone." "Value" is defined as "something (as a principle or
quality) intrinsically desirable." So that when (in the context of the MoQ)
Value is equated with empirical experience, it must be recognized as a
"special" definition which departs from the common meaning of these terms.
You quote two Pirsig paragraphs, the first previous to this posting at 9:56
AM:
"Most empiricists deny the validity of any knowledge gained through
imagination, authority, tradition, or purely theoretical reasoning. They
regard fields such as art, morality, religion, and metaphysics as
unverifiable. The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying
that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are
verifiable, and that in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical
reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of
the metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of
subjects and objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject
or an object isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this
assumption
at all. It is just an assumption."
Logically, there cannot be empirical evidence for a metaphysical theory.
But there is empirical evidence for subject/object existence: it is common
experience. Value is neither an object or knowledge. But the values of
art, morality and religion are immanent to the individual subject (i.e.,
value-sensibility) who projects such values into the objective world of
experience. So, contrary to Pirsig's assertion, the reason esthetic, moral
and spiritual values are excluded or denied by empiricists (i.e.,
objectivists) is empirical, not metaphysical.
"There's a principle in physics that if a thing can't be distinguished
from anything else it doesn't exist. To this the Metaphysics of Quality
adds a second principle: if a thing has no value it isn't distinguished
from anything else. Then, putting the two together, a thing that has no
value does not exist. The thing has not created the value. The value
has created the thing. When it is seen that value is the front edge of
experience, there is no problem for empiricists here. It simply restates
the empiricists' belief that experience is the starting point of all
reality.
The only problem is for a subject-object metaphysics that calls itself
empiricism."
I agree with this paragraph in its entirety, except that I would not call
subject-object a "metaphysics" any more than I would call experience a
metaphysics. For it is an empirical fact that experience is the subject's
awareness of an objective reality.
Essentially speaking,
Ham
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