From: Paul Turner (pauljturner@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 16:32:47 BST
Hi Sam
Some thoughts on your interesting eudaimonia argument.
On Sunday May 25th you wrote:
Anyhow - let's
> look at a specific example, which, as I
> mentioned to Wim, is for me a pretty good one. A
> Rembrandt portrait - how is that resolvable into
> biological and social satisfactions? (I'm assuming
> you're still happy with 'intellect' meaning
> logical and/or scientific?) I think there is a
> remainder once you 'remove' the patterns that are
> biologically or socially derived, ie the physical
> stuff the portrait is made of, and the social
> motivations (pay?) that bring it into being.
There is, that remainder is intellectual quality plus
Dynamic Quality.
> (Shakespeare could be an alternative example). I
> think
> that the quality of the painting cannot be separated
> from the emotional insight and maturity that
> governed the 'sight' that Rembrandt brought to bear,
> and I don't think that emotional Quality is
> resolvable to level 2 and level 3 patterns.
>
> : To back up my case, I give you Pirsig's
> testimony::
> :
> : "The MOQ sees emotions as a biological response to
> quality and not the
> : same thing as quality." (Lila's Child)
>
> I don't think Pirsig has a good handle on emotions,
> and this is possibly the major part of my
> disagreement with him (that's why it's my #1
> objection).
I would say that emotion is biological response plus
social meaning.
I agree that emotions begin as a
> biological
> response to quality, but I think they 'scale up'
> with each level, ie shame is a socially constructed
> emotion.
The ‘blushing’ or similar response is biological, the
context and meaning is social. The concept of ‘shame’
is intellectual. The idea that 'shame is a social
construct' is also intellectual.
In the same way, I think the ability to
> think for oneself (a key part of level 4, I think
> we agree) (and as opposed to simply thinking, which
> I think happens in level 3) is dependent upon
> emotional maturity, ie the development of the
> virtues, which are focussed on the individual not
> the
> society within which that individual is born. Those
> virtues I think are emotional constructions, not
> intellectual constructions.
Having publicly struggled with the MOQ definition of a
human being, I concluded the following:
The ‘individual’ is an inorganic field of stable
quantum probabilities, organised by DNA into a
coherent biological body, many social people, a
collection of concepts and ideas and with a Dynamic
awareness.
Perhaps it is Dynamic awareness that you refer to when
you talk of emotional maturity and individual
autonomy?
Cheers
Paul
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