Krimel said to SA:
Have betterness as your central thought is problematic. It leaves open the
question of worseness. In theological circles similar arguments caused
similar problems. The existence of evil has been used often as a proof for
the non-existence of God. The devout offer up all kinds of theodicies to
discount this critique but frankly they are all pretty lame. You are seeing
basically the same thing here.
dmb says:
Worse is just the negative face of better, so your first objection makes no
sense. And I think you have the theology backwards in at least two different
ways. I was recently re-reading William Barrett's "Irrational Man: A Study
in Existential Philosophy" and there the author explains Heidegger's
critique of Western Philosophy, which is amazingly like Pirsig's. They both
take sides with the pre-Socrtatic thinkers against Plato's moves to
encapsulate or intellectualize "truth". They both think Aristotle made
things much, much worse than that. They both think that Western Philosophy
lost something big in this developement. Heidegger's critique is of a thing
called the "metaphysics of presence", which is pretty much what Pirsig means
by the "metaphysics of substance". They both attack subject-object dualism
as thee manifestation of this ancient metaphysical regime and they both
offer a kind of Taoism as an alternative to it. (see "Heidegger's Hidden
Sources".) Barrett explains how this same metaphysical mistake found its way
into theology and more specifically he points to the move St. Thomas Aquinas
made in saying that evil "has no being in things". This was an attempt to
bannish evil from the universe because a perfect God would never create such
a thing. But the faulty logic of this is exposed, Barrett points out, when
we consider the case of a man who has just gone blind. Using the logic of
Aquinas, vision is a real thing but the absence of vision is not a real
thing. This is where we get the phrase "absence of the good". Thus evil was
explained away. It has no existience as such but it rather the label we
apply to an absence. In the same sense, blindness has no being in things
either. But, as Barrett points out, for the man who suffers from it, it is
as crushing as a brick being dropped on his head. It is the most
overwhelming fact of his life. And denying the reality of blindness and evil
is thus exposed as completely ridiculous and a bit cruel too. So anyway, the
existence of God was used to deny the reality of evil, not the other way
around. And the assertion of betterness does not deny worseness. Not at all.
Betterness means nothing except in relation to worseness. Its a relational
concept. This commone critique by Pirsig and Heidegger is an attack on
theism and scientism, both of which use the same dualistic metaphysical
assumptions, assumptions that are so completely ubiquitous in the West that
alternatives are hardly available except by going East or looking among the
pre-Socratics. Somehow you've managed to convince yourself that Taosim is
compatible with your scientific outlook but not with the MOQ. That is also
backwards.
dmb
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