[Craig]
So rather than respond to your response to what I didn't mean to say,
I'll start over:
[Arlo]
Fair enough, nice talking to you again.
[Craig]
So I think Pirsig himself would say that the MoQ is not identical to or
limited to his view.
[Arlo]
Let me stop and ask, do you think there is 'one' MOQ, as evidenced by
the determinant 'the', or do you think there is/can be multiple MOQs? I
think this gets directly to my point about how defining this can lead to
some fundamental differences.
If there is 'one', for example, then the goal of all this is really a
bid to legitimacy as to who/which ideas can claim to be 'The MOQ'. And
this legitimacy does not (as you suggest) point back to Pirsig, but then
the next question is, how is this legitimacy derived?
To use my animal/social example, would you say that 'The MOQ' does or
does not allow for non-human social activity? On what basis do you make
this claim? Citing Pirsig's denial? Is it a 'majority consensus'
decision? If I successfully convince a majority of people here that my
views on this are correct, does that mean then that "The MOQ accepts
non-human sociality"? Several members were adamantly convinced that the
intellectual level of "The MOQ" was "SOM". Others were opposed to this
(including Pirsig). So what would be the resolution-condition to
determining what "The MOQ" says?
[Craig]
THE MoQ is the metaphysics which started with Pirsig (influenced by
Eastern thought, Northrop, et al.) but has grown by additions of others'
views, principles, reasoning, attitudes, etc.
[Arlo]
In this sense (if I understand) "The MOQ", despite the definitive 'the',
is an umbrella term akin to 'pragmatism', is that correct? Where the
general body of discourse has certain central premises, but the
pragmatism of any one author will vary to some degree, on some points,
to the pragmatism of any other author.
So while Peirce, James and Dewey can all lay claim to developing ideas
within pragmatism, there will be disagreements among them, and (apart
from a few groupies) no one would claim that any one of them has sole
claim to authoring "The Pragmatism".
If we talk about James' Pragmatism, Peirce's Pragmatism and Dewey's
Pragmatism, why would we not talk about Pirsig's MOQ and subsequently
Arlo's MOQ or Craig's MOQ or any other divergent-but-similar metaphysics
developed in this tradition? Why would we talk about "The MOQ" but not
"The MOP" (The Metaphysics of Pragmatism) or "The MOE" (The Metaphysics
of Existentialism) as if only one author/idea can lay legitimate claim
to speaking in this tradition?
[Craig]
The MoQ has a central core about which there is a concensus. Other
parts are controversial & tentative. Some parts of the MoQ Pirsig might
even disagree with.
[Arlo]
Some parts of Arlo's MOQ Pirsig might disagree with, for sure. There are
some parts of Pirsig's MOQ that I disagree with. But which one of us has
a disagreement with "The MOQ"?
As it stands now, on the animal/social example, it is I who have the
disagreement with "The MOQ" (in this formulation). But let's say that I
convince 51% of you that I am right. Does that now mean that Pirsig (and
possibly you) suddenly now "disagree with The MOQ"?
[Craig]
AN MoQ is a particular metaphysics which sufficiently overlaps with THE
MoQ & which does not deny the central core of THE MoQ.
[Arlo]
This is a step in the right direction, I think, but if I ask how you
define the 'central core' of pragmatism, how would you determine that?
Let's suppose for a moment that we agree that the "DQ/SQ" split is a
necessary component of the 'central core' of The MOQ for one's ideas to
be considered an MOQ. But now let's say I propose that instead of the
four IBSI static levels, there are actually five "inorganic, biological,
social, intellectual and trans-temporal perception", have I denied the
central core, or am I still considered an MOQ?
Back to my animal/social example, I certainly feel that my arguments for
this do not take me outside of the umbrella-framework of a MOQ, but some
might. How would you answer this? Do I need to restrict the social level
to humans to operate within the central core of the MOQ? And, more
importantly, if the 'central core' is adaptive and impermanent, then
what is a MOQ today may not be a MOQ tomorrow, and may be again at some
point in the future.
I'm not sure how using terminology to this end has value, like I said,
it seems much simpler to just talk about Pirsig's ideas and my ideas and
your ideas and evaluate them as such. We can talk about what Pirig's MOQ
offers, and we can talk about your or my or anyone else's refutations
and extension and elaborations of those ideas, and I'm not sure why this
isn't enough.
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