Greetings, David --
On Mon. 7/15/13 at 5:46 PM, David Buchanan<[email protected]> wrote:
Mark Linsenmayer's latest blog post compares Heidegger's "Being" to
Pirsig's
"Quality".
"So 'humanism,' which Heidegger identifies as a Roman invention that
oversimplified Greek philosophy, actually doesn’t grant humanity
enough dignity for Heidegger’s taste. Humanism locates the source
of value in us, whereas Heidegger thinks that consideration of Being
is prior, again, to any such particular thoughts about our practical
characteristics (e.g. virtues or animalistic qualities). In particular,
it is prior (in much the way Pirsig described 'Quality') to the
subject-object distinction which, Heidegger thinks, actually dehumanizes
us by making the internal, subjective, spiritual side of us so pale and
circumscribed compared to the public, objective, material part of
experience."
I think they have a similar view of language as well...
I'm glad you quoted Lisenmayer on Heidegger's House of Being, and realize
its relevance to Pirsig's Quality hierarchy. I'm also quite sure that
Pirsig, like Heidegger, would deny that he is an existentialist, though the
MOQ is largely based on an evolving universe of Being. This topic is of
special interest to me because it exposes what I see as a metaphysical faux
pas.
I was also pleased to see Lisenmayer's etymology of the term "Being". "It's
not connecting with another person that connects us with Being, but using
language to make clear our position as 'ek-static,' i.e., standing out from
Being so as to be able to reflect on our relation to it." Similarly, the
word "ex-ist" means, literally, "to stand out from" (ex- being the Latin
prefix for "out" added to the Latin verb stare, meaning "to stand").
Heidegger was right in separating man from the being of otherness. But this
leaves us with the question: What, exactly, does the existent stand out
from?
For didactic purposes, Being may be considered the equivalent of "what
exists", and it is understandable that a philosopher living in a society
mired in the dogma of theism would want to establish Existence as the
fundamental reality. Heidegger laid the groundwork for Sartre's maxim
'Being precedes Essence' in much the same way that Pirsig underscored
Quality as the primary reality. Both believed their theory was the
breakthrough needed to "dignify" philosophy by freeing it from
subject/object dualism and pitfalls of mysticism. But do they?
Your friend Lisenmayer himself, in a recent review of ZMM, writes "I don’t
think the resolution of this issue fits quite as neatly in with the
philosophical picture of disassociation with the culture of cold reason as
the book implies." Could his disappointment be due to the fact that
Pirsig's Quality is a subjective appraisal of the desirability or pragmatic
value of Being, as opposed to its fundamental source or essence?
As you quoted from his blog, Lisenmayer states, "For Heidegger, it’s
language itself that is the 'house of Being,' that enables the poet or
philosopher, through careful uses of it (and real thinking, which amounts to
the same thing), to be a 'guardian' of this house." But how can mere
language—dialectical rhetoric—formulated by humans with no direct knowledge
beyond finite experience provide insight as to the meaning and purpose of
existential Being, let alone define Ultimate Reality?
Human beings are not programmed to experience the Essence of reality in any
other way than as the differentiated value of otherness. In my philosophy.
the essential factors are Value and Sensibility. All else is phenomenal—the
appearance of finite things and events in time and space. Without
value-sensibility, the individual human is a nothingness (negate) who
realizes "conditional" values in the process of experiencing objective
otherness. This realization comes, not by adding the being of phenomena
(objects) to consciousness, but by denying (negating) their otherness.
So the Essentialist's reality paradigm is not "the becoming of being," as
postulated by existentialists but, rather, "the realization of value".
Value is born into the world as pre-intellectual sensibility seeking to
transform itself into beings-aware. As sensible agents we create our own
being by inferring it from our sense of essential value. Our ignorance of
absolute {metaphysical) truth is what gives us the autonomy needed to make
those decisions that will determine our being-in-the-world. Thus, we
"become" by denying or negating the "otherness" of being while supplanting
our own nothingness with its finite value.
I only wish that RMP had incorporated something comparable to this concept
in his two semi-autobiographical novels. Instead, he posits an indefinable
source called Dynamic Quality which is apparently an extension of existence
that moves everything—subjects, objects, and the universe alike—constantly
toward a utopian "betterness". But I give him full credit for recognizing
the significance of Value, at least in the pragmatic affairs of mankind.
Thanks for the link, David. I intend to borrow some of Heidegger's thoughts
in an essay on "The Essence of Our Reality".
Essentially speaking,
Ham
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