Hi Matt, You've written a bit over my head, but I have been wondering about the particular versus the general, and finding them both to be false. I'm really kind of stuck in the 'not this, not that' mode, especially as I interact with my own thinking.
I sense that you have depth, and you are kind, and that you hold an important question. i cannot explain the 'question' so you are correct not to pay me too much mind. Marsha On Jul 13, 2010, at 4:25 PM, Matt Kundert wrote: > > Hi Marsha, > > Heh, very nice riposte to the questions-thing. Obscure, > but I think know what you are saying. Or at least, since > this version wasn't attached to the thing with Craig in > "[MD] Decisions," I think I know why you read what I said > and thought of Cioran. > > I find it too intimidating to try and explicate my sense > that I can be both a Hegelian semanticist (someone who > thinks that meaning is generated by words and that there > is real evolution) _and_ agree with nearly everything > Cioran was writing, but it has to do with my sense that > Cioran is holding two distinct visions of Hegel in his mind > at the same time, and that if we disentangle them, we > can have most of his entertaining polemic along with > thinking that we have better beliefs than people in the > past. > > I would pair this line: > > "Hegel is chiefly responsible for modern optimism. How > could he have failed to see that consciousness changes > only its form and modalities, but never progresses?" > > with this line: > > "That History has no meaning is what should delight our > hearts." > > Those two thoughts, that there is evolutionary progress > _and_ no meaning in History, are both, I would suggest > (though I can do little more than that), attributable to > Hegel's influence. What is meant by "Absolute Idealism" > (which Pirsig refers to in both books, I think) is that > there is a perfect whole to which we are evolving. What > is that whole? Whatever it is that greets us at the End > of History. And that means that the _beginning_ of > History holds the seeds of the End of History, and that > nothing _really_ changes because History is just the > unfolding of a preordained internal logic. (Think of the Big > Bang in physics.) > > I think that's bad philosophy, and I think Pirsig thinks so, > too. However that may be, when we take the widest > view--Universe-as-a-whole, or History-as-a-whole--it > seems damn well unavoidable (as it did to, e.g., > Parmenides, Spinoza, and Horkheimer and Adorno). What > I think that should suggest is that _if_ we are going to > talk about retailing various beliefs as being of higher or > lower value (which Pirsig seems to suggest is a person's > default position), then we cannot very well take "the > widest view": taking that view (in Pirsig's vocabulary) just > yields you "Quality" (or in Joe Mauer's suggestion, > "Dynamic Quality" over and over). And _that_ means that > delimiting what view you are taking is a prior commitment > to the weighing of higher and lower values, which _then_ > means that to take "the widest view," as the Buddha did > and Pirsig sometimes does, has a specific, > conversational-contextualized meaning-effect: which in > its essence, I think, is "mu." When hearing someone's > "smaller view," and not liking the options it accords you > as available for choice, you might pop out a Zen koan to > suggest that the smaller view defined by the kinds of > questions it implicitly is answering are the wrong kinds > of questions. > > Matt > > _________________________________________________________________ > The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with > Hotmail. > http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5 > 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 ___ 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
