Dear John --
On Tues. Jan 26, 2014 at 1:37 PM, John Carl replied to Ham's statement:
Although few people are totally self-sufficient in today's society, I
don't see that fulfilling individual needs with goods and/or services
purchased by the rewards of their labor makes the Individual and society
>> a "co-dependent" entity per se.
J: I know you don't. It's not on that level that they are co-dependent.
It's at the level of definition and conceptualization - the 4th level.
The
individual cannot "see" (conceive) himself except in the context of a
society. For the individual, the society is it's other, else which there
is no being.
No being for either. For without a real self, an individual - a society
is
not a being either. If there is no individuality at all, then everything
is an individual one - made of constituent parts - your essential way of
looking at things I think? And all this is just variants of self-other,
subject object philosophy if we don't heed that all-important third - the
value between the individual and the society. That values-between is
what the MoQ is about.
OK, I think I see the problem, John. Basically it concerns 'selfness' vs.
'otherness'. These are the terms by which I designate the subject/object
duality. 'Being' itself is a mental construct of experiential sense data,
which means that without sensibility there is no Being -- neither objective
(societal) nor subjective (personal).
As you see, that leaves Sensibility as the metaphysical foundation of
Beingness. What is sensibility, you ask? Essentially, it's the capacity
to realize Value. What value does it realize? As I have just eliminated
everything else in existence, by logical necessity sensibility must be the
individual's valuistic realization of the essential Source. And there you
have the essentialist paradigm of reality.
John:
What is tiresome to me, are those who conclude from the significance of
valuation, that it completely negates it's creations - the individual and
his society. They are positive creations, not negates. NOT (not this,
not
that) something, not nothing and a distinction arising from betterness.
To assert that there is no self is to undo all that good value.
I understand. But what you don't understand is that realizing relational
values does not negate Essential Value; it negates the otherness of the
being perceived. This is how we enter it into consciousness as a thing, a
person, an object, a system, a society, or whatever. Those valuistic
precepts of being are retained in the conscious mind of the self (a negate)
which, in effect, negates their otherness while "creating" (affirming) the
'values-between' as they apply to Essence. (This amounts to a "double
negation", which is admittedly a mind teaser, but so is the whole mystery of
creation!)
Ham. previously:
Nor do I believe, as Andre apparently does, that "There is a moral code
that establishes the supremacy of social order over biological life ...
[and] moral codes over the social order." In other words, I don't believe
in a world that is moral by divine or executive fiat. For, if that were
so, there would be no quest for moral virtue, no human need to
discriminate between the good, the bad, and the indifferent.
J: Well there I think Andre is right and you are wrong. Moral virtue
*is*a quest because reality *is* a moral order. The fact that morality
includes bad and indifferent, must be a good thing, because it plainly is.
> The problem of evil is practically unsolvable unless we accept that
those > evils instruct us in the wisdom of our struggle for the good. I
hate to get > into that subject, it's one that Royce and James struggled
bitterly over
and I can't imagine what to add to their arguments.
What I object to is the "dictates" inference of "supremacy of social order
over biology." There is no such supremacy, and certainly no "moral order"
which we are obliged to follow. Aside from the laws of Nature, which are
how we define intelligent design, man is free to choose his values and
subscribe to whatever morality system strikes his fancy. The very purpose
of our existence is to realize and select those sensible values which
represent our finite perspective of Absolute Essence.
Ham:
If this is Pirsig's vision of the universe, he is sorely mistaken. It is
my belief that we exist in an amoral universe, and that man is granted
value sensibility for the specific purpose of realizing and defining
Essential Value in relational terms.
John:
Granted by whom? It must be some kind of higher moral authority doing
the granting, Ham, so how can you assert so assuredly that our universe
is amoral? I don't get the reasoning behind that conclusion one bit.
Take a good guess, John. Man is his own "moral authority", so I resent the
inference that the absolute Source of our existence is "some higher moral
authority". Created beings are negates of this uncreated Source, which
makes their existence transitional as opposed to ultimate or eternal.
Unfortunately, Mr. Pirsig chose to avoid defining his DQ as the primary
source, thus making the MoQ a less significant thesis, and the individual a
less meaningful entity. than they might have been.
Hopefully the points I've elaborated above will help to resolve some of the
inconsistencies in your SOM definition (viz-a-viz "Philosophical Realism"?)
Essentially yours,
Ham
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