Platt, Arlo, Bo, All --
What is "subject-object metaphysics"? Despite countless references to SOM throughout these discussions, and Bodvar's use of it as a model for his SOL, I've never understood the meaning of this term. And "meta-metaphysics" is a nonsensical parody.
But now Platt has produced what is apparently a letter by Pirsig stating that the MOQ opposes the SOM. It addresses Platt's conclusion that "The MOQ is the best S/O answer."
[Pirsig]:
I think this conclusion undermines the MOQ, although that is obviously not Platt's intention. It is like saying that science is really a form of religion. There is some truth to that, but it has the effect dismissing science as really not very important. The MOQ is in opposition to subject-object metaphysics. To say that it is a part of that system which it opposes sounds like a dismissal. I have read that the MOQ is the same as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, James, Peirce, Nietzsche, Bergson, and many others even though these people are not held to be saying the same as each other. This kind of comparison is what I have meant by the term, "philosophology." It is done by people who are not seeking to understand what is written but only to classify it so that they don't have to see it as anything new. ...
If "subject-object metaphysics" is intended to mean the perception of reality as a pluralistic system whose physical components evolve and move in orderly fashion, it is the physical world we all experience, not "metaphysics". How can any philosophy be "opposed to" experience or existence? Even a metaphysical thesis that transcends space/time existence (definitely not the MOQ) cannot be "opposed" to it.
The experiential existence we participate in is made up of subjects and objects, awareness and beingness, and the attributes and qualities these constituents reveal to us. To stand opposed to existence, or to claim it is not included in the whole of reality, is not a "metaphysical concept" but irrational thinking on the part of a philosopher. Nor do ideas borrowed from Aristotle or Hegel automatically make one author's philosophy the equivalent of another.
We argue over philosophical concepts as if they were political initiatives demanding our 'yea' or 'nay vote, while in fact they are premises offered to explain the true nature of reality. Certainly words and symbols used to convey a concept are not the concept itself, but they do not "oppose" the concept they represent.
Differentiated existence and the physical laws that apply to its dynamics does not a metaphysics make. By the same token, objects and entities whose existence is dependent on a source beyond finitude do not constitute ultimate reality. The role of metaphysics is not to explain the relations of evolutionary events but to distinguish the phenomenal world of appearances from the essential reality that underlies it.
Otherwise, I see this dispute as a tempest over a teapot. Essentially speaking, Ham 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/md/archives.html
