Hello everyone On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:50 PM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected]>wrote:
> [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. > Hi Arlo and David I remember thinking how the "two contexts" was written to placate everyone... we can all be correct in one context or the other. I agree with Arlo that we should not strive to confine our perspective to one context or the other. They are both limiting in their own fashion. Why do we want to confine our outlook in that manner? By using both, we expand rationality rather than limit our perspective. > > 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 metaphysics? I thought so. > Dan: Absolutely. And a large part of doing philosophy well and maintaining our bikes properly is getting it right. That isn't to say perfect, since that would entail no possibility for further evolution, no way to get it better. I think I made the comment to Paul Turner that his "two contexts thesis" seems like a movement backwards somehow... that the Quality context isn't one point of view or the other, but both. It is understanding Quality comes first, just as you say. Now here I am reading how so-and-so is stuck in context one and who-and-who is stuck in context two and neither can see what the other is saying. No, no, no. It is not about blaming others for being in "context one" or "context two" and not knowing the difference. It is not about everyone piling upon one person because s/he is deemed incorrigible. > > [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. > Dan: This seems right to me. Motorcycle maintenance is an excellent analogy for this ever-evolving intellectual journey we all are (hopefully) on. There is no real destination, no perfectly tuned bike. It takes time, care, and constant attention to keep that baby running right. Faulty logic, contradiction, and lack of intellectual coherence in this philosophy forum is the same as trying to tune a motorcycle with a monkey wrench. It just doesn't work. Thank you, Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
