Struan and MD
I haven't had time to read all the posts in this thread, but I
did notice that it began with what was largely a critique
of a post I wrote nearly a year ago for a different mailing list,
yet nowhere in that critique did you quote the original in full
or give a reference where it could be found.
So here it is.
Hi Mofs
>The subject-object metaphysics (SOM) that seems to attract so much blame
> is also described as, 'a straw man, a position held by no-one'. Who exactly
> does hold a purely SOM position? Who completely denies the existence of
> Quality? If nobody, or very few people, who or what are we criticising?
Taking the first question first I had a look in the Cambridge dictionary of
philosophy:
*Who exactly does hold a purely SOM position?*
"A subject-object dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western traditions, but
emphasised especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with Kant, and
carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and
Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in internationalist philosophy, in the
empirical psychology of Bretano, the object theory of Meinong, Ernst Mally,
and Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl."
So why did Galen Strawson say that it was a straw man? I think probably
because in spite of the fact that the SOM is an identifiable trend, it's
also something that has been found flawed in the past and that today's
academics know very well to be problematic. The effect of consciousness in
quantum physics is something that can hardly be ignored for example.
Strawson is a Oxford metaphysician, so it's a pretty good bet that he's
read the work of Gilbert Ryle who was also an Oxford metaphysician. Ryle
invented the "ghost in the machine" concept that has become a standard
refutation of the mind-matter split. Ryle's refutation has been followed by
others, so I suppose to Strawson, Pirsig's rejection of the SOM is
redundant - it's something we already know.
*If nobody, or very few people, who or what are we criticising?*
We're criticising the Mythos - our socially transmitted ideas. Ideas that
we picked up at a very young age and never bothered to question and that
are fundamental to practically everything we do. The SOM is still the last
best static metaphysical foundation we've had. It's true that many have
pointed out what's wrong with the SOM but they haven't actually come up
with anything better *that has taken root in our culture*. The SOM still
remains our last latch, it's the only thing that Pirsig possibly _could_
discuss the MOQ with reference to.
And because the SOM remains our mythos even those who do intellectually
understand the arguments against it, still out of habit or convention tend
to behave as if it were true anyway. Philosophy is just a bookish pursuit
which doesn't necessarily apply in the real world. Again, it's because we
haven't got anything better. It's a social-intellectual split,
intellectually we know it's wrong, socially we follow it anyway.
Another reason Pirsig had to argue against the SOM is that although anyone
who's studied philosophy must see the problems with it, actually not many
people study philosophy. Pirsig doesn't write for an academic audience, he
writes for real people, his books are for sale in airports. That's not to
say that they aren't serious, it just means that he's going to have to
explain basics that professors of metaphysics probably wouldn't need to be
told in language that they wouldn't use. The subject-object metaphysics
occupies a place in our mythos much like free market economics and
"scientific" reality in that what lay-people think the experts believe
bears very little resemblance to what they actually do believe. If you ask
a doctor whether placebo medicines really have physical results they will
tell you that they certainly do, but if you ask your man-in-the-pub whether
mind can affect matter he probably thinks it can't, and he probably thinks
the "scientists" would back him up.
The SOM is so fundamental that even so-called mystics who shouldn't believe
it seem affected by it anyway. The idea of reincarnation as it's understood
in the West for example is pure subject-object metaphysics. The little
ghost that is your true Self leaves your body when you die and goes to live
in a new baby. Actually that isn't what Buddhism says at all, but that's
the way it's been understood in the West because people have tried to pin
new ideas onto an old, flawed metaphysics.
That's why philosophy is so important and why understanding the SOM is
important to the MOQ. The new-agers who just try to grab quality without
any intellectual understanding of what they're doing get it all wrong
because they still follow the mythos without even realising it.
*Who completely denies the existence of Quality?*
I've left this till last because it's the most important point. Many people
may know the SOM is flawed, but few Western philosophers believe in Quality
and our mythos certainly denies its existence. And Quality, not the SOM, is
the main subject of the book. LILA wasn't written primarily to argue
against the SOM, it was written to argue IN FAVOUR of the MOQ. Pirsig isn't
just trying to diss the SOM, he's trying to offer something better.
Diana
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