Good "old" John
1 Feb. you wrote:
> Bo, You asked to provide one example of a philosophy that refutes SOM
> before Pirsig. Lot's of philsopher's on this forum have spluttered and
> protested you on this issue before, but you are still not satisfied. I
> don't see how the babbling idiocy of a mere Kindergardner is going to
> help, but here goes anyway.
> In Royce's four conceptions of Being, the first conception he calls
> "Realism" and asserts that "no serious thinker holds this conception".
> It is the view of the common man that reality is "out there"
> independent of us. That is SOM, just being called by a different name.
Well, first the obvious, there was'nt any Subject/Object Metaphysics
that Royce faced and possibly tried to refute, but the very same
mind/matter enigma that later faced young RMP and the mentioned
Realism correspond more or less to Materialism, but the SOM that
RMP "discovered) has something called Idealism which says the
opposite of materialism namely: "There is no reality out there, all is
mind" and thinking that the MOQ has any affinity to idealism is wrong.
-------------
An aside here: SOM began as the "objective attitude", but no sooner
were this born before its counterpoint "subjectivity" popped up (the
Sophists. Note however that the mythological - Aretê - era that SOM
replaced did not know any subjectivity or objectivity, thus the Sophists
did not defend the old myths, but as said represented SOM's
subjectivity, contrasted to Socrates' Truth (objectivity).
-------------
Thus Royce may have scoffed at "Realism" (materialism) but what
was his alternative? Did he scoff at idealism?
> You can read his entire thesis on the subject, if you care to.
> http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPWATI&Volume=0&Issue=
> 0&ArticleID=3 > Or you can read his summary dismissal and make your own
> conclusion from that.
I'm not going to read reams of documents. You tell me, if you have
Royce as your hero you must know his ideas.
> "But viewed as an ultimate and complete metaphysical doctrine, and not
> as a convenient half-truth, Realism, as we shall find hereafter, upon a
> closer examination, needs indeed no external opposition. It rends its
> own world to pieces even as it creates it. It contradicts its own
> conceptions in uttering them. It asserts the mutual dependence of
> knowing and of Being in the very act of declaring Being independent. In
> brief, realism never opens its mouth without expounding an antinomy."
If this is Royce refuting Realism (materialism) I agree 100%, but
exactly the same can be said about Idealism. Don't you know about
the so-called empiricists Locke, Berkeley, Hume who back in the
sixteenth century arrived at the conclusion that all qualities were
subjective (color for instance does not exist, objectively "out there" only
different electromagnetic frequencies. This uncanny "pure reason"
Kant tried to refute but merely ended up with cementing the subjective
"thing for us" vs "the thing in itself". And around these SOM poles
Western Philosophy has circled ever since .... until Pirsig broke the
spell. I can't see how Royce criticizing "the thing in itself" or his friend
William James and arriving at some pre-something that us subjects
bring to life, differs from ordinary SOM. However Phaedrus insight of a
Pre-intellectual dynamic something spawning the static "intellectual"
(subject/object) aggregate.IS REVOLUTION! But - alas - what this
discussion is hell-bent on not recognizing.
Bodvar
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