Greetings,
JONATHAN:
"I feel that the solution to this lies in our understanding of rationality
itself. SOM equates rationality with the dialectic. I have consistently
pointed out in this forum how one can follow religiously follow the
dialectic to absurdity.
IMHO, the MoQ solution is to widen the scope of rationality beyond the
dialectic."
Aristotle (along with most Ancient Greeks) understood 'dialectic' to mean the 'ART of
debate.' (The
word comes from the Greek). The biggest 'asshole' in that chapter of ZAMM is Phaedrus,
simply
because he thought he could properly criticise Aristotle without paying the slightest
attention to
the problems of translation and transliteration. It is one of the great failings of
Pirsig that the
professor was characterised as being philosophically retarded, otherwise he could have
put Phaedrus
straight very easily and this mythical, if rather quaint, 'SOM' would never have seen
the light of
day.
Equally; 'reason' as a term has had a more involved passage to modern English (and
American), but
2000 years ago was widely regarded as being descriptive of products of, 'the faculty
of intuition,'
and even now is, in popular parlance, linked to motive (same root as emotion).
So a 'rational dialectic,' for Aristotle could well have meant, 'using the faculty of
intuition to
further (the art of) debate.'
For all its drama, that chapter is pure bluster and we should give it a wide berth.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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