Marsha: And let's not forget Nagarjuna, who pushed back against the two extremes during the first century C.E.
On Apr 30, 2011, at 12:11 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Horse said: > The way I see it is that the only thing that's real is Quality - and > Pirsig/MoQ splits this into Static Quality and Dynamic Quality. > > > Arlo replied: > Right, "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world" (LILA). But > then you seem to go on and say that only DQ is "reality", and SQ is > "illusion". I think this is a mistake, and I think it's because it continues > to use the "real" in some existential sense rather than an empirical one. > ...its apparent we define "illusion" differently. To me being "not entirely > correct" does not make something an "illusion". What is an illusion is the > consideration of subjects and objects as primary existants. Failing to see > Quality, failing to see that "reality" is empirical and not existential, this > is the illusion. ...When Pirsig talks about "gooning out" when he meets > Redford, he says, "It was no subjective illusion. It's a very real primary > reality, an empirical perception." (LILA) Our empirical perceptions, they are > what is real, they define what is "real" as precisely a experiential > phenomenon and not as an existential one. > > > dmb says: > I think that's a very clear and neat way to put it, Arlo. We could think > about this in terms of the basic set up. As Pirsig is just about to launch > into the MOQ proper, he addresses the concerns of the two main opponents of > metaphysics; the positivists and the mystics. They oppose metaphysics for two > completely different reasons. The positivists, operating with materialist > assumptions, say that metaphysics is meaningless. They'll be extremely > skeptical, if not completely dismissive, of any statement that can't be > verified through direct observation. For them, physical reality is what's > real and true statements are the ones that correspond to it. The mystics, on > the other hand, reject metaphysics because they're operating on the view that > reality is outside of language and beyond all concepts. Ideas don't bring you > closer to reality, they say, it has to be known directly, through > non-conceptual experience. > Rather than simply take sides with one or the other, Pirsig sort of splits > the difference here and proceeds with his metaphysics despite their > objections. He agrees with the positivist's empiricism but says that > positivism was rejecting metaphysics for metaphysical reasons and he says > these empiricists aren't empirical enough. He agrees with the mystic's > assertion that metaphysics is just a menu and ought not be confused with the > actual food. But he also says that forming a coherent picture of reality is > just part of life. The only one who doesn't pollute the mystical reality with > conceptual understandings hasn't been born yet, he says. And to make a long > story short, the MOQ splits the difference in such a way that we get > pragmatism and mysticism at the same time. The MOQ is both. And experience is > central to both. > So the MOQ says that experience is what's real. The primary empirical reality > (DQ) is the food and the menu (sq) is valuable and helpful to the extent that > it helps you get the food. In other words, the point and purpose of static > quality is to successfully guide the ongoing course of experience, to serve > life. The intellect isn't rejected so much as it is demoted, stripped of it's > pretensions to eternal truth and absolute certainty. This was James's purpose > too. Like Pirsig, he traces the problem all the way back to Plato and the > ancients. James calls it "vicious abstractionism". Intellectualism becomes > vicious, he said, when concepts are reified, deified and the empirical > reality from which they were abstracted in the first place is denigrated as > less than real. And so James and Pirsig push back against this. They see the > dominance of the intellect as a distortion and they both say concepts are > always secondary and subservient. There is a point and purpose to this abstrac ti > ng function. It's definitely not something we want to throw away or dismiss > as an illusion. Static patterns of the menu are only an "illusion" if you're > confusing them with the food. > > It's concepts AND reality, you know? Not concepts vs reality. > > In what sense were those 1945 bombs not real? Shall we just shrug it off > because all that death and destruction was ultimate and eternal? Because it > only ruined "conventional" realities or contingent beings? No that is exactly > the problem with vicious abstractionism. It doesn't explain human suffering > so much as it explains it AWAY. Betterness or meliorism is at the heart of > the move against this kind of nihilistic otherworldliness. > ___ 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
