From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Fri Aug 05 2005 - 09:02:40 BST
Paul (Matt perhaps) and All.
On 2 Aug. Paul wrote:
> I read Matt's exasperated reply to this post with sympathy.
> I have just one brief interjection.
Matt:
> >> Something interesting did come out of this. You say that intellect
> >> arose in Greece during Socrates' time. Right? So, you're saying
> >> that when Pirsig talked about rhetoric in ZMM he was talking about
> >> social patterns and when he talked about dialectic he was talking
> >> about intellectual patterns.
Bo:
> >Agree about dialectics. Earlier I have claimed that because the
> >Sophists were Plato's hate objects and he (Plato) was intellect's
> >midwife then the Sophists had to be (the last) defenders of social
> >value. But I've found that they rather were intellect's "idealists"
> >(subjective over objective) before the modern idealist/materialist
> >form. Protagoras' "man the measure ..." points in that direction.
Paul:
> No, at least, that's not how Pirsig saw it:
> "Man is the measure of all things." Yes, that's what he is saying
> about Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective
> idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as
> the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality which
> creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his
> experience." [ZMM, p383]
> As you keep reminding us, S/O was a distinction that didn't exist when
> the Sophists were teaching - so it seems an odd move to pin idealism
> on them. These Sophists could turn out to be a real spanner in the
> works for the SOL. Interesting.
About SOM not leaping ready-made into existence is no great
thing (why Matt repeatedly hits the roof over this is beyond me)
Pirsig describes SOM as having its start with the search for
immortal principles. With Parmenides a milestone was reached
(ZMM page 366)
"It's here that the classic mind for the first time took leave
of its romantic origin
(Classic=intellect in the diagram and if so Romantic=society)
Now, according to my philosophy book Parmenides and the
cosmologists were the (coming) "scientists" in contrasts to the
Sophists who were the coming "humanists". Translated to moqish
the former were the "objetivists" while the latter were the
"subjectivists".
"Now Plato's hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and
Socrates are defending the immortal principle of the
cosmologists against what they considered to be the
decadence of the Sophists .." (ZMM 368)
At first I did not notice this point and thought the development
coming to a head with Plato, Aristotles & Co. were all there was
to SOM and consequently, with (my thesis of) SOM=intellect the
Sophists had to be social value representatives, but this is an
important point. What is for sure is that the MOQ rejects SOM
included its subjective part. To make it sound as if it has any
affinity for subjectivism is wrong.
Back to ZMM:
> "Man is the measure of all things." Yes, that's what he is saying
> about Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective
> idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as
> the objective idealists and materialists would say. The Quality which
> creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his
> experience." [ZMM, p383]
Here the MOQ must be applied. "Man" is all levels and (new)
Quality emerges as a relationship between the highest static level
and the dynamism that always strives to escape it. After the
social level this process necessarily became "man-centered", but
not "mind-centered". (in a modern idealist sense).
However, I am dubious about the Sophists' role (in a MOQ
context) if they represented some higher or purer Quality (Aretê).
What happened in Greece was intellect (classic mind) emerging
out of society (its romantic origin). "Man the measure versus truth
the measure ..." bacame intellects subject/object distinction (still
is).
Bo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Aug 05 2005 - 09:08:22 BST