Martin Striz (striz1@MARSHALL.EDU)
Thu, 11 Dec 1997 09:14:24 +0100
>Truth and Good are assumed to be the same thing but it
>seems to me that this does not necessarily follow. Truth
can also be bad as
>well as good. What do we mean by good?
That's a very Western, Rationalist, subject-object way of
looking at it. I think the whole discussion of Arete was
about the original intent of having truth, goodness, and
beauty as one. It became virtue and dharma in the east and
west, respectively. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Pirsig was
pointing his finger at Plato and saying "look here, this is
our culprit. This dialectician split goodness from truth and
made truth stand above it." Remember Plato's beliefs about
the Eternally True, Eternally Good, and Eternally Beautiful.
So no matter whether a proposition is good, whether it leads
to fruitful consequences, whether it puts us into a
successful relationship with the world, it should be
regarded as true or false on purely rational grounds.
That attitude prevailed ever since Plato and it seems you
have it, too. The first people to go against it were
apparently the Pragmatists like William James and Charles
Peirce. They said, "Hey forget about the underlying
rationality and the basic principles, the truth of any idea
must depend on it's practical consequences." In other words,
on its goodness.
Pirsig borrowed this idea from the pragmatists. Remember
when he mentions William James and talks about the man who
goes around the squirrel which goes around the tree? What
rationality leads to the truth of the man going around the
squirrel or not? Does he really go around it? It is
pointed out that it all depends on what perspective you're
looking from, whether you count "going around" as being
North, East, South, and West of the squirrel, or whether you
count it as being in front, left, back, and right of it.
Well, it seems that which ever situation is most practical
ought to be used, and ought to be regarded as true. The
rationality you use leads to one truth (depending on your
presuppositions), but a more open philosophy leads to the
many truths talked about in Lila, each depending on its
goodness within a situation.
If Dynamic Quality is the foundation of reality, it is
truth. And we already know that it is goodness. So goodness
and truth are united, much like the old concept of arete.
(And don't forget beauty, too) What is truth to social
values is not necessarily truth to biological values. So
don't be so naive as to think we have some ultimate truth.
:-)
MANY TRUTHS to you,
Martin
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