Hey, Steve --
Ham:
Sometimes I think the Pirsigians are led to believe that Value
exists independently of subjective sensibility or experience.
Steve:
Sometimes???? Geez, Ham. How long have you been around here?
This is what we "Pirsigians" say ALL the time, not just sometimes.
This is the fundamental premise that this forum was created to explore!
Pirsig challenged us to suppose that Value exists prior to notions of
objectivity or subjectivity and to see where that idea would lead us.
I keep asking you to try it out and see how it works, and you keep
saying that trying it out doesn't make sense since it just isn't true.
It isn't true for you because you are reasoning from premises that
presuppose that subjects and objects precede Value.
I don't know how we can possibly get past this impasse if you are
unwilling to see what reasoning is like based on Pirsig's premises.
Maybe you can explain how "epistemology does not support such
a concept." I think that this is just an assumption that you make,
which happens to also be common sense, but it is still just an
assumption, a prejudice.
I take it you want to refute common sense. As for epistemology, I quote
from John L. Mackie, an Australian philosopher and Fellow of Oxford
University and the British Academy:
"For value to exist at all there must be a valuator - an agent - to impose a
standard on what is otherwise an indifferent universe. Things are good to
agents, for the sake of attaining some goal; they are not simply good in
themselves. Put differently, reality comes before morality. Prior to all
good and evil, there must be a world of things that can become good, evil,
or neither. In that regard, value is conditional: it predicates on the
existence of agents who have some standard for the material state of
affairs."
-- [Mackie, J.L. “The Subjectivity of Values”]
You think Pirsig has it all backwards, but is no big incite. That is
precisely the point. Pirsig says, suppose we've had it all upside
down all along. Pirsig is *deliberately* turning everything on its head.
Playing 'let's suppose' may be amusing as a child's game, but it doesn't
shed any light on experiential values. Similarly, I could change my
perspective by imagining a flying cow or a talking lizard (Geico?), but this
won't change the way the world works or how knowledge is acquired. There is
simply no epistemological support for unexperienced or unrealizable value.
Asking me to "try it out" is like asking me to believe in the Truth Fairy.
I don't deny that there is a metaphysical Source of Value, which is also the
source of all physical appearances. Since Mr. Pirsig claims his MoQ is
"anti-theistic", it may not be obvious to everyone that he has coined
Quality as an aphorism to avoid reference to a Creator or primary source.
However, the relational term "value" or "quality" cannot logically be
applied to an absolute. It has always seemed to me that the DQ concept,
despite its "evolutionary progression to betterness", equates to God in a
spiritualistic sense. And it's apparent here that I'm not alone in that
opinion.
[Steve]:
From LC:
58. ...in all subject-object metaphysics, both the observed (the
object) and the observer (the subject) are assumed to exist
prior to the observation. In the MOQ nothing exists prior to the
observation. The observation creates the intellectual patterns
called “observed” and “observer.” Think about it. How could
a subject and object exist in a world where there are no observations?
To observe is to experience objectively, usually with some degree of
intellect. As an observer, I create my reality by experiencing what is not
me (otherness). I do not create my self or my sensibility. I was never
clear as to who wrote Lila's Child, but the author's theory seems to be that
"observation" arose from "nothing" to create existence. I find this
ontogeny deeply flawed. Not only can nothing come from nothingness, neither
can Quality or Value. Obviously there can't be an observing agent without
being (otherness), so I don't see how experience is possible in the absence
of an objective referent.
To your usual question, "who or what is having the experience?"
you might consider that if there were no experiences this question
could not be asked. So while it is common sense to think that there
must be a subject that existed prior to the experience, Pirsig points
out that this entity that is supposed to be having an experience,
this subject, is just an idea. And (for empricists anyway) ideas
arise out of experiences rather than the other way around.
I suggested previously that you try a different perspective in your
engagement with Pirsig's philosophy. My suggestion is that you
don't view your exploration of Pirsig as a competition between
two philosophical systems (Essentialism and the MOQ) but rather
that you examine these two intellectual realities the same way you
examine paintings in an art gallery, not with an effort to find out
which one is the real painting or even the better painting, but simply
to understand and appreciate the accomplishment of a fellow artist.
Steve, while I can appreciate RMP as an accomplished writer and novelist, I
don't regard metaphysics as an art form. Judging a philosopher by these
criteria demeans Philosophy. It's not like trying on a shoe. I hope you
don't think I'm gullible enough to believe everything a gifted novelist sets
in print.
Regards,
Ham
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