dmb asked: Can a psychopath be a good philosopher?
David Thomas replied: Excellent question! How open of you! ...OK let's take a quick look. If we divorce the "philosophical ramblings" from the actions and behavior of "character" Phaedrus in the two books and check them against your checklist is surprising how many of the traits do matchup. Except for "pathological lying," examples of the others abound. And howcould we really know about that trait without an in-depth biography to compare with? Though inattentive [poor behavioral controls] in his first university, the REAL reason for his failure was the "defect" in science [Callousness; lack of empathy]. Which essentially started his 50 year drift through life until he "corrected" it with the MoQ [Grandiose sense of self-worth]. The whole motorcycle trip with his son smashed between his back and luggage [Callousness; lack of empathy] [Failure to accept responsibility] [poor behavioral controls]. Phew! My bad, you meant Marsha. Thanks, DMB for clearing that up. As you can see from this little snippet would have been an arduous task to apply this theory to all of ZaMM and Lila. Probably it would be easier to take the fully texts and mark the appropriate passages with the nine traits. I suspect it would be cacophony of numbers. dmb says: There certainly was some grandiosity about Phaedrus' mission but other than that I don't see any similarities. And his grandiose mission turned out to be true, more or less. No, a psychotic break is not at all like psychopathy. Psychopaths are not insane. And yes, the narrator of ZAMM is a social level "sell-out" and a cold father but this fictional character is not a psychopath. Even normal people can have one or two of these traits but psychopathy is essentially a lack of empathy. And there is a whole range of disorders on a continuum from mild narcissism to stone cold serial killers. It's a disturbingly common affliction. And yes, I meant Marsha. I'd been reading some articles about this personality disorder (for another discussion group) and was struck by the similarities between Marsha and their descriptions. I was especially struck by the author's description of the "epistemic virtues and values that promote the pursuit of knowledge". Like Pirsig, I think, he doesn't insist on any essential feature but promotes a whole batch of epistemic virtues and values. The article's list looks very much like Pirsig's list, don't you think? "Among these are being clear, valuing evidence, exposing theories to testing, not being dogmatic, keeping explanations and explanatory entities as simple as possible, and not letting politics determine good scholarship". Now, in his analogy, postmodernist lack these epistemic virtues and values. And they don’t want them. "In fact, in analogy with the narcissism of psychopaths, postmodernists view themselves as superior to those who possess epistemic virtues and values. They see themselves as above such things, as superior. “You don’t really think that people believe because of arguments, do you?” is a common question put by postmodernists, usually with an arrogant and condescending tone." I think it's an uncanny description of Marsha's attitude, don't you? To ask the question and then respond to the answer with dismissive insults and condescension is what gave her the Lucy reputation years ago - and she's still at it. She mocks epistemic value and virtues as if they were beneath her pretty much every day, don't you think? Marsha on 8/13: "I would love to hear your interpretation of the Intellectual Level. I've asked you a number of times to explain it, but you have evaded presenting an explanation. Please explain". Marsha on 8/14: "Is this the best you have to offer? Is this the type of philosophical discussion for which you long? I can only repeat that I'm not buying your rhetoric. I am at the MD to explore RMP's Metaphysics of Quality, and the MoQ's relationship to Buddhism, and the way they both add quality to actually living a life. I am not here to accept your interpretations, opinions and judgements as Holy Writ. I'll leave you to your smallness." Marsha on any given day:"... my aim has been to explore RMP's writing, rather than accept your (David Buchanan) opinions, beliefs, assertions and criticisms as Scripture. Your paraphrasing has never impressed me. I can accept that you have different value judgements than mine as a result of our different histories and current patterns of values, but I find no sound reason to adopt them." "There is a strong analogy here with postmodernism. Just as psychopaths lack moral virtues and values and do not want them, postmodernists lack epistemic virtues and values and do not want them. There is a trend in philosophy of science, in trying to distinguish science from pseudoscience and nonscience, which is not to look for any one or few essentialistic features but to find the distinction in a cluster-class of epistemic virtues and values that promote the pursuit of knowledge. Among these are being clear, valuing evidence, exposing theories to testing, not being dogmatic, keeping explanations and explanatory entities as simple as possible, and not letting politics determine good scholarship. This is why no religion or theology is a science and why astrology and homeopathy are not real sciences either. They lack epistemic virtues and values. And postmodernists lack them too. They lack them, and moreover they don’t want them. In fact, in analogy with the narcissism of psychopaths, postmodernists view themselves as superior to those who possess epistemic virtues and values. They see themselves as above such things, as superior. “You don’t really think that people believe because of arguments, do you?” is a common question put by postmodernists, usually with an arrogant and condescending tone." See the full article at http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=stamos_31_5 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
