Craig, Mary and All --
I don't want to get involved in the Bodvar controversy, but Craig's recent
exchange with Mary illustrates the folly of treating intellect as a "level".
[Craig]:
An argument for SOL = Intellectual level:
1) The intellectual level is the manipulation of symbolic
representations
2) Symbolic representation requires both
something-represented & something-represented-to
3) Something-represented is an object
4) Something-represented-to is a subject
5) :. The intellectual level requires subjects & objects
Of course intellect requires a cognitive subject. Who can deny that?
But a level, realm, or domain is a place or repository for something. You
have used it as a process: "manipulation". As I have insisted all along,
intellect is not a LEVEL, it's a cognitive function. In fact, it's the
function of subjective reasoning.
[Mary replies]:
Exactly.
The Pirsig koan.
To understand that the Intellectual Level is "thinking itself" as he has
said, requires a clear understanding of what "thinking itself" is -
clearer
might be to say it requires an admission of what thinking itself is.
Once you have made this realization, the next step would be to
consider in what ways this "thinking itself" differs from the thoughts
of the Social Level. What purposes of its own does it serve?
If Pirsig has defined Intellect as "thinking itself", it cannot be a level.
Thinking or reasoning is a mental activity performed by a person (subject).
As Ayn Rand astutely observed, "There is no such thing as a 'collective
thought'." Society has no mind of its own, so it can only subscribe to the
reasoning of individuals who do the thinking.
Why must we complicate matters by imagining thoughts and conceptions as
belonging to a level of Quality? Does Creativity have a level, too? What
about Talent, Intelligence, or Mechanical Aptitude? These are but a few of
numerous attributes that are subjective in function. To posit them as
extracorporeal "levels" defies epistemology and is irrational in my opinion.
The only explanation I can see for this anomaly is that it helps us pretend
that there are no subjects (or objects).
Essentially speaking,
Ham
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