Dr. Ant, I've heard this assertion before, and refuted it before but a little reiteration can sometimes be a good thing.
On Apr 10, 2012, at 9:49 AM, Ant McWatt <[email protected]> > > Ant McWatt comments: > > That's a good selection of philosophers/philosophy that you have cited there > Mark and you're correct they all have covered areas that Pirsig examined > later on but, as I said previously, none of them put values ahead of subjects > and objects in the empirical train of events or/and added that these values > are evolving and can be ordered in a moral framework. That is original to > Pirsig. There is one other philosopher that I know of, who preceded Pirsig with a refutation of SOM, a relatively unknown guy today - Josiah Royce. He uses a different terminology than Pirsig, of course, he calls SOM Realism, to designate the idea that the objects of our perception or imagination have a completely independent from us reality of their own. He critiques this theory of being, along with three others in his The World and the Individual. I suggest you check it out if you don't believe me. It's readily available on the web and contains many fascinating insights that coincide with the MoQ and some that expand upon it marvelously. Some quotes so support my assertion: "to be real means to be independent of an idea or experience through which the real being is, from without, felt, or thought, or known. And this, I say, is the view best known as metaphysical Realism, the view which, recognizing independent beings as real, lays explicit stress upon their independence as the very essence of their reality" "And now for some hint of the historical fortunes of Realism. I have pointed out how wide-spread is this realistic conception of Being in the history of philosophy. I may now add that I think that this conception has never been held wholly alone, and apart from other conceptions of reality, by any first-rate thinker." An important point he makes illustrating why SOM has such a stranglehold upon the Academy : "Accordingly, in the history of thought, Realism is the metaphysic of the party of good order, when good order is viewed merely as something to be preserved. Hence the typical conservatives, the extreme Right wing of any elaborate social order, will generally be realistic in their metaphysics. ". An interesting aside as to why Phaedrus was so vehemently persecuted... "The realist is fond of insisting upon the “sanity” of his views. By sanity he means social convenience. Now reflective thinking is often socially inconvenient. When it is, the realist loves to talk of “wholesome” belief in reality, and to hurl pathological epithets at opponents. It is thus often amusing to find the same thinker who declares that reality is quite independent of all merely human or mental interests, in the next breath offering as proof of his thesis the practical and interesting “wholesomeness ” of this very conviction." An Illustration of why I deem SOM the kindergarten of the 4th level... "Yet Realism, if indeed strictly sane, as sanity goes amongst us men, is a view as falsely abstract as it is convenient. This sundering of external and internal meaning is precisely what our later study will show to be impossible. As a shorthand statement of the situation of the finite being, Realism, laying stress as it does upon our vast and disquieting inadequacy to win union with the Other that we seek, is a good beginning of metaphysics. As an effort to define determinateness and finality, it is a stage on the way to a true conception of Individuality and of Individual Beings. As a summary indication of the nature of our social consciousness, and of our social world, Realism is indeed the bulwark of good order. For good order, in us men, practically depends, from moment to moment, upon abstractions, since we have at any one instant to think narrowly in order to act vigorously. But viewed as an ultimate and complete metaphysical doctrine, and not as a convenient half-truth, Realism, as we shall find hereafter, upon a closer examination, needs indeed no external opposition. It rends its own world to pieces even as it creates it. It contradicts its own conceptions in uttering them. It asserts the mutual dependence of knowing and of Being in the very act of declaring Being independent. In brief, realism never opens its mouth without expounding an antinomy." Take Care, John 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
