[DMB] For the second time today, I'll object to the notion that my position is limited to just one of the two contexts.
[Arlo] Yeah, I think this entire "two contexts" has been drawn into polar views, and I doubt this is what David Morey intended (at least I didn't read this into his writing). As I see it, both are active all of the time. We should not be "in context one" or "in context two", but we should be in "context" talking about the value of Quality in both lights. For example, even though Pirsig would say the motorcycle-as-object as no primary reality, I think he'd say that if you were going to ride it, then taking the time to maintain it well, to understand it, to take the the time to do it good. I think the same can be said of philosophy. No one is arguing for scientific objectivism (this is absurd), arguing for intellectual quality is NOT arguing for 'reificiation' or subject-object primacy, or any such thing. Philosophy is just like that motorcycle. No one is making you ride it. No one is making you maintain it. But if you choose to ride, and if you choose to do the maintenance, then I think it will carry you further if you take the time to do it right. Just jumping onto a motorcycle and repeating "this motorcycle is an illusion", and calling the people discussing repair and maintenance "static" or "context two" is a fool's journey. As I said many times, we ALL understand the value of meditation, we've ALL (likely) been to Zen centers, we all (maybe) have felt the primal sway in drum circles, or any number of activities to 'flow', to groove, to clear the mind, to shatter our patterned beliefs and habits. Yeah. We GET that. But, you also got to grow your analogues (to use ZMM language), meditation alone will never make you a better mechanic. ZMM/LILA was not an argument for abandoning reason and embracing discoherence and anti-intellectualism. He didn't tell mechanics to throw away their tools, and forget about fixing their bikes because they were just hypothetical illusions anyway, and go meditate. He said 'you can become a BETTER mechanic by putting Quality first'. And, after that, he took the time and care to craft a well-argued, coherent metaphysics. Isn't the point of this forum to CARE about philosophy, to do it good, and to take the time to articulate (like Pirsig) a well-argued, coherent metaphysi cs? I thought so. [Ian wrote] Yes it's a philosophy discussion group - but it is not a discussion group necessarily confined by the standards of existing philosophical academe. [Arlo] Well, no one's expecting abstracts and reference lists. And we're fairly lax about inline citations. And I don't remember the last time I saw a post critiqued for not abiding by the APA or MLA Style Guides. And, I'm fairly certain we don't begrudge posts that violate the structure of how most academic articles and papers are written. But since when did coherence and logic, and articulating well-thought out positions become something that 'confined' a forum dedicated to philosophy? I am currently going back over Granger's book, and its pretty evident that he spent a lot of time and care building something both artistic and coherent, something that abides by the most basic intellectual qualities. These are GOOD things. This whole thing should not be 'context one versus context two', it should be how both understandings (Quality as preceding subjects and objects, and an evolutionary hierarchy of patterned value, can BOTH and TOGETHER inform our activity, help us maintain our motorcycles so they can carry us on long journeys and back. 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
