Greetings,
"Pirsig uses the term ‘subject-object metaphysics’ (SOM) for any metaphysics
(explicitly or implicitly) that perceives reality as either mind and/or matter
such as idealism, materialism, and dualism. This recognition is not unique to
Pirsig as, for instance, the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy also notes that
‘a subject-object dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western traditions’."
(MoQ Textbook)
"In the MOQ, nothing exists prior to the observation. The observation creates
the intellectual patterns called “observed” and “observer.”
(LILA's Child', Annotation 65)
Cannot help but wonder about the knower and the known, or the observer and the
observed? Has this dualist perspective vanished into a cloud of pretty
rhetorical terms such as elegance, consistency and coherence, and what of
phrases like "DQ chooses" and "SOM thinks"? Very pretty paraphrasing of few
quotes, but is the intellectual level nothing more than rhetoric?
Marsha
On Aug 20, 2013, at 3:46 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ian asked:
> ... I'm asking what does MoQish expression and argument have, that
> distinguishes it from SOMist expression and argument.
>
>
> dmb said:
> I think it's quite clear that there are all kinds of ways to describe
> intellectual quality WITHOUT getting it mixed up with SOM.
>
>
> Ian replied:
> Agreed. Precisely what I've been saying for more years than I care to
> remember. To avoid the (unnecessary) mixing up, to avoid (unnecessarily)
> working the SOMism to death, let's disentangle any (low quality) narrow,
> GOF-SOMist-intellectual discourse from a wider (high quality, enlightened,
> extended) MoQ-ish-intellectual discourse - by expressing what more does the
> latter comprise, that makes it higher quality than the former. (And again,
> just to be clear, to recap, it's the discourse - the expression and argument
> - I'm talking about, not the underlying metaphysics, where I think we're all
> clear on MoQ-101, the primary S/O vs primary Q/DQ distinction.)
>
>
>
> dmb says:
> Dude, you've announced your agreement with one bland statement and totally
> ignored the rest. Why ask the question if you're just going to ignore the
> answer. Don't you have anything to say about the quotes and explanations I
> offered? If it's not what you're looking for, then what are you asking? How
> did my answers fail to address your question?
> Pirsig shows us what it's like in his books. His philosophy is embedded in a
> narrative and even includes autobiographical info. It's personal, heartfelt
> and yet it's also coherently structured and precise. This is Pirsig
> demonstrating his conception of rhetoric, his conception of excellence in
> thought and speech, his conception of an expanded and improved rationality,
> an artful rationality. He relies on analogies and metaphors as much as logic
> and empirical evidence.
>
> Anyway, here's the part you did not mention at all, which is all of my post
> except for that one boring, introductory sentence. It would be nice if you
> read it, thought about and responded to it with some coherent thoughts of
> your own.
>
>
> TWO FACETS OF ANY HIGH-QUALITY ENDEAVOR
>
>
> "...In practice, this distinction [static and dynamic] refers to two facets
> of any high-quality endeavour. Motorcycle maintenance and easel painting both
> depend on the interaction of Static Patterns and Dynamic Quality. Pirsig made
> an art out of motorcycle maintenance by first reading the manuals (with some
> prior understanding of the principles on which they depend), then riding his
> bike while alert to the unexpected sounds, or changes in engine performance,
> that DQ might notice and diagnose. Similarly, nobody becomes an accomplished
> painter, sculptor, writer, musician or architect without having recognized
> excellence in previous examples of those arts, and taken that excellence as
> the starting point for new work." -- (Patrick Doorly, The Truth About Art,
> p.129)
>
> dmb says:I think it's quite clear that there are all kinds of ways to
> describe intellectual quality WITHOUT getting it mixed up with SOM. Even
> after rejecting SOM for an expanded and improved form of rationality, an
> artful rationality, Pirsig still lists the basic criteria by which
> intellectual quality is evaluated. This includes things like elegance and not
> sloppiness, precision and not vagueness, clarity and not confusion, definable
> terms and not made up or arbitrary meanings, logical consistency and not
> incoherence or inconsistency, economy of explanation and not verbose,
> rambling drivel, and one of my favorites that could be discussed at great
> length, agreement with experience.
>
> "The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and
> economy of explanation. The Metaphysics of Quality satisfies these." (Lila,
> chapter 8.)
>
> "A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any
> metaphysics." (Lila, page 64.)
>
> "Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them."
> (ZAMM, page 214.)
>
> " ...the MOQ also says that DQ - the value-force that chooses an elegant
> mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a
> confusing, inconclusive one... Dynamic value is an integral part of science.
> It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself. ..." (Lila, chapter
> 29.)
>
> In other words, DQ is the value-force that chooses coherent ideas over
> incoherent ideas, that chooses logical consistency over contradiction. It's
> what guides the selection of beautiful ideas over clumsy and clunky notions.
> SOM is nothing like this. According to SOM, good and true ideas are the ones
> that correspond to the one and only objective reality and our values are
> considered a form of pollution. Science is supposed to value-free. In the
> MOQ, intellect is not polluted by values but rather intellect IS a certain
> kind of value, a species of the good. In the MOQ, intellect is centered
> around DQ and subordinate to DQ but SOM totally fails to acknowledge the
> value of values in our ways of thinking. That's the defect, the disease.
> Where Pirsig emphasizes the role of DQ, as the source and substance of
> everything, as the generator of all static patterns, SOM thinks that truth is
> only true when it's free of values. That's the problem. Coherence, elegance,
> consistency and relevant evidence is not the problem. Those are just a few of
> the names we give, that Pirsig gives, to certain kinds of intellectual
> excellence.
>
> "Value is the predecessor of structure. It’s the preintellectual awareness
> that gives rise to it. Our structured reality is preselected on the basis of
> value, and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding
> of the value source from which it’s derived. One’s rational understanding of
> a motorcycle is therefore modified from minute to minute as one works on it
> and sees that a new and different rational understanding has more Quality.
> One doesn’t cling to old sticky ideas because one has an immediate rational
> basis for rejecting them. Reality isn’t static anymore. It’s not a set of
> ideas you have to either fight or resign yourself to. It’s made up, in part,
> of ideas that are expected to grow as you grow, and as we all grow, century
> after century. With Quality as a central undefined term, reality is, in its
> essential nature, not static but dynamic. And when you really understand
> dynamic reality you never get stuck. It has forms but the forms are capable
> of change."
>
>
>
>
>
>
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