From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Oct 02 2004 - 23:41:20 BST
Scott, DM, mel and all thread followers:
Scott Roberts said:
<what follows is a definition of nominalism that I have agreed does not
make Pirsig a nominalist>. But you ignore that I said "My disagreements
with Pirsig arise from his nominalism (in Peirce's meaning, that universals
are restricted to humans)." ...So there are two definitions of nominalism.
If you know of a better term for Peirce's use of the term, let me know, and
I'll use that instead.
dmb replies:
I don't see any significant difference between the definition I provided and
Peirce's meaning. If it seems like I ignored the second definition its only
because it looks essentially like the first. I mean, what's the difference
between "restricted to humans" and "just subjective"? What's the difference
between the position that universals are "restricted to humans" and a
position "that denies all objectivity, whether actual or potential, to
universals", as Weisheipl puts it? I think nominalism is nominalism and
Pirsig has rejected it explicitly.
Scott said:
What do you use when writing posts? Are you just taking dictation or are
you thinking, and thereby creating new ideas? I think it is the latter. You
are creating new patterns, You are being dynamic.
dmb says:
I don't think there is a whole lot of genuine intellectual creativity going
on in my posts or anyone else's. Mostly its just moving furniture around.
Let us not confuse everyday mental operations with strokes of genius, with
the actual production of NEW patterns, new ideas. I think Pirsig provides
good examples in Ponciare and himself. The peyote ceremony opened his mind
in a way that allowed genuinely fresh insights and then there is the more
sober thrill of hitting upon the idea of a static/Dynamic split. The
latching that occured afterward was, by necessity, conducted in the normal
static intellectual world. The ability to communicate a new idea depends
upon his ability to shape and manage a mountain of static patterns. This is
hard work and even if the body is motionless we know from experience that
there is actually lots of action going on when we are thinking, when we are
skillfully manipulating abstaract symbols. It can be as absorbing and
consuming and thrilling, but that doesn't mean it is Dynamic. (I've found
myself "in a groove" while writing a few times, but usually its more like a
chore.) Motion and action are good metaphors for DQ, but trains follow
schedules, you know? The processes of nature, such as thinking itself, are
static patterns too. It could be that I am overestimating the rarity of
genuinely creative thinking, but the point remains the same. Thinking, most
of the time, is a static process. It has to be. That's what holds ideas and
the world together.
Scott said:
......................What I am saying is that I think this way (Pirsig's)
of using 'intellect' is a bad way to use it, as it is unempirical, since it
ignores the dynamic inherent in our creative thinking. And because it
suggests a limited interpretation of mysticism (see below).
dmb says:
How do you figure he ignores creativity in intellect? He makes a distinction
between static and dynamic, but also explains that these are the stable and
creative aspects of one reality and how they utter rely on each other. And
then there are all the examples of creative intellect, one of which created
a system that fully expects better ideas to come along in the future as they
have in the past. And he says "the most moral" thing we can do is open up a
space for creativity, that we are free to the extent that we follow DQ and
that the whole shebang is an evolutionary system. I sincerely wonder how
anyone could read LILA and still have the idea that Pirsig "ignores the
dynamic inherent in our creative thinking." I mean, saying one is different
from the other is not the same as rejecting one over the other or anything
like that.
Scott said:
............................................... Now Pirsig does hold
(and of course I agree with him) that in nature (the inorganic and
biological levels) there is value. So what I am saying is that if there is
value, then there are particulars and general principles, and an awareness
of them. That is, there is Peirce's triad. That is intellect. So at all
levels there is intellect. ...What this means is that Pirsig and I are using
'intellect' in different ways, and I am arguing that my way is better than
Pirsig's. So it is beside the point for you to keep quoting Pirsig in his
use of the term, as a way to rebut what I am saying.
dmb replies:
Hmmm. We're talking about Pirsig's MOQ on a site dedicated to talking about
Pirsig's MOQ, but its "beside the point" to quote Pirisg in refuting charges
against his MOQ? Dude, you're bummin' me out. If I trying to make the case
that Pirsig is NOT saying what you suggest he's saying, what could be better
than to show you what he HAS said on the matter? How could that possibly be
"beside the point"? In any case, I can't see how Peirce's triad follows from
the idea that there is value in nature. And, mel pointed out, you have
redefined value in a way that puts it back in the realm of subjectivity. And
I don't think its just that you and Pirsig are using a word differently, but
rather you have confused concepts as well as their labels, as I'll try to
show....
Scott said:
...........This argument of mine is all about how I think that Pirsig is
misusing the word 'intellect'. ...I also maintain that if one has ethical
activity one necessarily has intellectual activity. ...
I am using 'ideas' in the way pre-SOM philosophers did, and in the way
Goethe, Coleridge, Peirce, and other non-nominalists do. It is only
nominalists, in both definitions of the term, who use 'ideas' as something
that only occurs in humans.
dmb replies:
I'll take back the charge that you're being intellectually dishonest, by
which I meant a certain disregard for the rules of discourse and such and
not that you're lying or whatever. In any case, I take it back. However I'm
gonna stick with the charge that you're proposal is confusing and
destructive. You're in a Pirsig forum and you're using one of Pirsig's key
terms to refer to a completely different idea. Even if you were 100% correct
about the idea itself, the mislabeling is misleading and confusing. And I
think lots of this is predicated on a translation problem too, such as the
case with Plotinus, which I'll try to re-visit later. But the short version
is simply that guys like Plato and Plotinus may have used terms like "idea"
and "intellect", but they were not talking about 4th level static qualtiy or
the skilled manipulation of static patterns. They used those words to refer
to different ideas, and when we compare ideas rather the particular labels
they used things begin to clear up quickly....
Scott quoted Plotinus again:
.................................."In a certain sense, no doubt, all lives
are thoughts -- but qualified as thought vegetative, thought sensitive, and
thought psychic. What, then, makes them thoughts? The fact that they are
Reason-Principles. Every life is some form of thought, but of a dwindling
clearness like the degrees of life itself. The first and clearest Life and
the first Intelligence are one Being. The First Life, then is an
Intellection and the next form of Life is the next Intellection and the
last form of Life is the last form of Intellection. Thus every Life is of
this order; it is an Intellection." [Enneads III.8.8, translation by
Stephen McKenna]
dmb says:
This is a great example of the translation problem I'm talking about. You're
using this quote to refute Pirsig's use of the word intellect, but what I
see here is a confirmation of Pirsig's levels. He's saying that every life
is a form of thought, but qualified as "vegetative, sensitive and psychic",
"but of a dwindling clearness". If you look past the terms and see instead
the idea he's painting with them, I think you'll see that he's talking about
levels of consciousness. It seems that "intellection" means something like
"perception". He saying there are levels of perception, not that intellect
as Pirsig describes it exist on every level. Just as particles can express
preferences within a certain narrow range and biology can express much more,
Plotinus too says there is a "Dwindling clearness". If we wanted to
translate Pirsig idea of the intellectual level, then, it would very likely
be what Plotinus had in mind with "thought psychic". But again, the quote
just gets at the levels as Plotinus imagined them. They're not exactly the
same of course. Some systems have dozens of levels, but the idea is always
the same. As another example of how to translate these things, Plotinus uses
the idea of "dwindling clearness" to describe the relations between levels.
But we have a concept of time that is opposite from the ancient's in some
ways. They saw the past in front of them and imagined the world began in a
golden age and had been running down, so to speak. But we think of ourselves
as facing the future and belief in evolution and progress and all sorts of
forward motion metaphors. Knowing that, Plotinus' "dwindling clearness" can
be translated into "increasing clarity". The only real difference is that
our spacial metaphors have changed direction, but the idea remains; reality
can be divided into degrees of consciousness or awareness. And again, this
idea of a hierarchy of levels is part of the perrennial philosophy, which
Pirsig shares with Plotinus and others. Here's how Ken Wilber puts it:
(Emphasis is Wilber's)...
"As Huston Smith, Arthur Lovejoy, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and other scholars of
these traditions have pointed out, the core of the perennial philosophy is
the view that reality is composed of various LEVELS OF EXISTENCE - levels of
being and knowing - ranging from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit."
Scott said:
I agree with him (Pirsig) that Quality drives evolution. ...I am *also*
saying that value implies intellect, so one can also say that intellect
drives evolution. They would not be opposing statements *except* that Pirsig
has chosen to define intellect in an unnecessarily limited way. And note
that by jumping on this, you have again managed to ignore my reasoning for
why SQ are universals.
dmb says:
If it seem like I've been ignoring your "reasoning" for why SQ are
universals, its only because I was trying to be polite. ;-) But seriously,
think about what you've written. SQ are universals. As I understand the MOQ,
all the known universe is made of static patterns of quality, so if "sq are
universals", then all the known universe "are universals". I know you deny
SAYING it, but doesn't this imply that there are NO particulars? I think
you're confused on this point, very tangled up in fact, and I honestly don't
know where to begin. I guess I've been trying to cut through that Gordian
knot rather than try to untie it. Instead let me back up to the first part
of that paragraph...
Value implies intellect? Intellect drives evolution because Quality and
intellect are the same, provided intellect is defined much broader than
Pirsig does? Well, it wouldn't work to say that the evolution of the cosmos
is driven by the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols, that's for sure.
But why do we want to expand that definition beyond all recognition, when we
already have a term for that which drives evolution. We'd have two terms for
the same thing and would loose a good label for the fouth level of static
pattterns. This is what I mean when I say your proposal is confusing and
destructive. And I would also point out that value doesn't necessarily imply
intellect in any meaningful sense of the word. Can we really talk about the
intellect of subatomic particles or earthworms and still find it useful in
discussing Hitler's anti-intellectualism? Can we talk about vegetative
intellection in terms of FDR's New Deal and the current state of cultural
evolution? Not without tons of confusion and constant clumsy qualifiers.
I'd like to add that Value does imply some kind of perception and choice,
some expression of preference in response, but you seem to have imagined
that this perception and choice is seperate from the patterns themselves.
I'm not sure what you're doing with Peirce's triad and all that, but I'm
pretty sure his semiotics have nothing to do with Pirsig levels or his
epistemology. In any case, you seem to be using it to invent a little
intellectual judge who inspects patterns at each level. I don't get it at
all, but I think we can agree that there is some kind of awareness all the
way up and down, from the inorganic to the intellectual level. I think
Pirsig is already saying what you're saying. I just think that refering to
the various levels of awareness as intellectual is WAY too confusing, given
the name of Pirsig's fourth level. Why not call it consciousness rather than
intellect? Or how about awaressness? Then you don't get monsterous terms
like organic intellect, social intellect and intellectual intellect. Doesn't
biological awareness sound better? And in a context where "intellect" is on
the top ten list of key terms, isn't it much more clear to say it that way?
Scott said:
You have consistently misunderstood what I have said (for example, thinking
that I said there are no particulars, ignoring my distinction on
nominalism, ignoring how much I agree with Pirsig, and so forth). I
understand what Pirsig has said, and I agree with 90% of it (or whatever).
I am only arguing that his use of the word 'intellect' is a bad
metaphysical move. It is a bad move because it denies what Eckhart, et al
say (see quotes above): that intellect is our road to transcendence.
dmb finally concludes:
Intellect is our road to transcendence? Again, I think you have a serious
problem when it comes reading these guys. The quotes you provided, like the
Plotinus quote dissected above, contain the word "intellect" but you fail to
see that they are talking about something else entirely and are confused by
it. I don't see how they support your case at all. And your interpretation
seems quite shocking to me as it defies one of the most central and
universally shared beliefs among mystics....That the ultimate reality is
beyond language, intellectually unknowable, that it is pre-intellectual,
prior to ANY concepts, etc. And this is why intellect is NOT the road to
transcendence. This is why Quality and intellect are NOT synonymous.
"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics:
Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside of language;
that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic relgion, argues that the illusion of
dividedness can be overcome by meditation." LILA, page 63
Wilber:
"THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY (the term was made famous by Huxley but coined by
Leibniz) - the transcentental essence of the great religions - has as its
core the notion of 'nonduality', which means that reality is neither one nor
many, neither permanent nor dynamic, neither seperate nor unified, neither
pluralistic nor holistic. It is entirely and radically above and prior to
ANY form of conceptual elaboration."
Pirsig:
"Bradley's fundamental assertion is that the reality of the world is
intellectually unknowable, and that defines him as a mystic. ...Both he and
the MOQ are expressing what Aldous Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy",
which is perennial, I believe, because it happens to be true."
Thanks for reading.
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