From: Simon Magson (twix_570@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 21 2004 - 20:52:42 GMT
Scott Roberts wrote:
>Then reason is being treated as a sense. If you want to call it that, then
>are you now going to call Spinoza an empiricist?
No. Quality is sensed and reason is a term for the methods and patterns that
follow this Quality i.e., they comprise intellectual quality. The Quality
that is sensed is not subordinated to the ideas that follow, it creates
them. Instead of " a good Idea" the MOQ proposes "idea-like good" or
intellectual quality.
Spinoza was a pure rationalist. Rationalists say that that which is real and
that which can be known is that which can be conceived. He conceived of a
God with infinite attributes, thus it was real. Empiricists dispense with
such nonsense.
>The MOQ states that 'subject' is social and intellectual SQ. So now my
>question is: what observes SQ?
The search for something that observes something else i.e., exists prior to
and is the performer of observation, i.e., a subject is the result of
subject-object based systems. Why is it necessary for there to be an
observer?
That is, what is it that has no property
>other than it observes SQ? If you say it is other SQ, then I ask how do you
>observe this observing SQ? If you say that observation is nothing other
>than SQ/SQ interaction, then I would reply that you are sweeping the
>problem under the rug (as materialists do), not addressing the question.
The question comes from the assumption that there has to be an observer and
an observed in order for there to be experience i.e, it comes from SOM. I
don't make that assumption, I just start with the experience of observation.
>
> >
> > >Thus, he extends empirical to cover what used to be rational *as
>distinct
> > >from* empirical, and objective to what used to be subjective.
> >
> > I agree that he extends, and blurs with the philosophic meaning of
>rational,
> > the term "empirical", but he doesn't extend the meaning of "objective".
> > Phenomenal just means "known through the senses" and quality is known
> > through sense experience.
>
>But it is known differently. I sense trees, the smell of coffee, etc. I do
>not sense something I label value.
Then you will have no idea what Pirsig is talking about.
All these things I sense have value, but
>I do not sense it in the way I sense things and events. This puts value in
>a category like space or time. Nothing that I sense is space or time, but I
>know space and time as properties of what I do sense. As Kant pointed out,
>space and time are the conditions for our sensing things and events, and I
>would argue that value should be treated similarly.
Look, a newborn child has no idea of categories of space and time or things
and events but she cries when she experiences low quality and laughs when
she experiences high quality. She doesn't need to deduce the metaphysical
"properties" of experience to work out that there is something which she can
label as "quality".
SM
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