Dmb,
"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 said: 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? dmb says: "Lightning hits! Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine "virtue." But areté. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen was that of rhetoric. He has been doing it right all along." The comments and quotes simply name SOME of the marks of intellectual quality, of the art of rationality or the art of rhetoric. It's a partial list of what's right when you write artfully. That's why the quotes and comments are riddled with terms like.... ...personal, heartfelt, coherently structured, and precise. ...analogies and metaphors as much as logic and empirical evidence. ...elegance and not sloppiness, precision and not vagueness, clarity and not confusion, definable terms and not made up or arbitrary meanings. Truth must have logical consistency and not incoherence, economy of explanation and not verbose, rambling drivel, and agreement with experience. Metaphysical ideas "must be divisible, definable and knowable". "Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them." ...DQ is "the value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one" and guides the selection of beautiful ideas over clumsy and clunky notions. That's just a fraction of the things Pirsig has said about intellect. One of his central aims, if not the most important one of all, is a root expansion of rationality. By equating his conception of intellectual quality with SOM, you have certainly missed the point of his work in a very big way. Marsha: No more than you missing the point of my post. I appreciate that you have a favored way of interpreting the MoQ, but there should be no need for others to be constrained by your perspective. "Unlike subject-object metaphysics the Metaphysics of Quality does not insist on a single exclusive truth." And this: "Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they demand blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change. But static patterns, nevertheless, provide a necessary stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress from degeneration. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this world in which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order, preserve our world. Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the other." Marsha: While I agree with this entire paragraph, I ask you to consider carefully the first sentence. Your perspective, assertions and opinions are not to be taken as Scripture. Marsha 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
