David,
dmb is just trying to provoke me to write the academic article about the
Quadrilemma in the MOQ. It's all part of the game. From his point of
view, there are two options. Either MD dies again or it will be
populated by sneering academics. Either Pirsig's MOQ will be ignored or
it receives negative attention. Negative attention is probably better.
To boot, dmb gets to feel like a leader, because he makes people more
able than himself do work for him.
The question is, do I want to be a part of this deal?
What's in it for me?
You know, I once read the online dating profile of a professional
philosopher. He wrote he doesn't have much time for dating because he
has to write applications for grant money. DUHH... do I want that?
Once you're done with your grant you need a new one. And if I got a
grant I'd probably instantly lose interest in the project I was working
on. I wouldn't even know how long the project's going to take. I began
working on the MOQ when I was sixteen and I thought I'd be finished in a
couple of months. And I'm still at it.
But if dmb ain't gonna shut up perhaps someone else will write the
article. Perhaps not.
Regards,
Tuk
On 22-Nov-16 13:53, David Harding wrote:
Hi dmb,
Beautifully put and indeed so beautifully it's to the point where it appears
even Tuukka was moved by your words. It’s clear that you have a great
understanding of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and I doubt I could
retell it better myself…
However, praise aside, I do wonder if you agree with the words you write when
you’re continually referring to what ‘Pirsig says'. Do you agree with Pirsig?
What’s your opinion?
On this point I’m not so sure but in your first paragraph you write that a
traditional understanding of rhetoric and sophistry is fine as there are so
many hucksters out there. But on this I disagree. I would argue that it’s
precisely because of our traditional understanding of these terms that there
are so many hucksters and deceivers out there. What’s missed by Socrates is
that he, and not the Sophists, is being the deceptive one by claiming he
doesn’t know what is good. That’s why I think it’s our current day
Metaphysics, built upon Socrates assumption, that creates this deceptive
attitude. One in which the words we speak can be meaningless so who really
cares about them anyway? And Quality forget that - what’s that? Furthermore,
how can you be honest and speak to the wholeness of experience without
perceiving and speaking directly of its Quality? And how better to continually
do this than with a Metaphysics which points out that all things are built upon
it, and so are it?
But you were probably just giving a throwaway line and I’m reading too much
into this but figure it’s worth a chat anyway :)
On Nov 21, 2016, at 9:47 AM, david <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello, MOQers:
I suppose everyone knows that people are suspicious of the emotional language in
"rhetoric" and consider "sophistry" to be a form of manipulative deception. The
conventional meaning isn't likely to change anytime soon and that's fine because there is empty
speech and there are plenty of manipulative deceivers that deserve the name. In telling the story
of philosophy Pirsig turns those meanings upside down.
“Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger struggle in which
the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the
True, represented by the dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the
future mind of man.” -- Robert Pirsig
As the story is usually told, rhetoric is too emotional to be considered
serious about the truth. Our feelings have no bearing on the truth, this story
goes, and clear thinking is about cool logic and putting one's passions aside.
But, Pirsig says, this story doesn't make as much sense as it used to.
“It’s been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the passions,
the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of
nature’s order which was as yet unknown. Now it’s time to further an
understanding of nature’s order by reassimilating those passions which were
originally fled from. The passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man’s
consciousness, are a part of nature’s order too. The central part.” — Robert
Pirsig
At certain points in the re-telling and inversion of this old slanderous story
Pirsig is downright angry about it. He finally realizes that the Platonic
demand for passionless dialectic has the effect of excluding Quality, which is
the whole thing for Pirsig.
“Phædrus’ mind races on and on and then on further, seeing now at last a kind of
evil thing, an evil deeply entrenched in himself, which pretends to try and
understand love and beauty and truth and wisdom but whose real purpose is never to
understand them, whose real purpose is always to usurp them and enthrone itself.
Dialectic - the usurper. That is what he sees. The parvenu, muscling in on all that
is Good and seeking to contain it and control it."
And he's feeling triumphant about this discovery because it turns out that the
Sophists weren't demagogues, hucksters, or confidence men. They were teaching
Quality and they were teaching it the same way he had been teaching it to his
student in Montana.
"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."
And this re-telling of ancient history is part of the book's central project,
which is a root expansion of rationality. The criticisms of rationality that he
offers almost always involve the problem of objective truth. Value-free science
has got to go, he says. Attitudes of objectivity make our thinking stiff and
narrow and entail a denigration of subjectivity so that Quality is JUST what
you like, is JUST your opinion or assessment of some thing or other. But this
is part of that same old slander against the Sophists and rhetoricians, Pirsig
says, and our form of rationality would actually be vastly improved by putting
Quality at the cutting edge of all experience and all thought. Quality is right
there at the very roots of our thinking and by including Quality our thinking
is broadened and deepened and enriched by the inclusion of the emotional and
aesthetic quality that pervades our thought regardless of whether we
acknowledge it or not. You gotta have a feel for the work, he says, and that's
not just about fixing motorcycles. It's about everything. All the time.
For Pirsig, "rhetoric" simply means excellence in thought and speech. Rhetoric
is truer than objective truth because it includes the heart as well the head, so to
speak. To talk truthfully will mean that the claim is supported by evidence and its
expression logically sound, just as before, but that's no longer good enough. Speaking
truthfully also means that you care about the truth, have feelings about that truth and
maybe your expression shows the power or the beauty of that truth. To move or persuade
another is not a sinister manipulation or a deception. It's a good thing and we should
love it somebody does it right.
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