LS Re: Value


Hugo Fjelsted Alroe (alroe@vip.cybercity.dk)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:58:01 +0100


Diana, you have provoked me to respond on this subject, - you asked for it :-)

I personally dislike the lumping together of quality, value and moral. To
me quality is a monad, a 'firstness', in Leibniz' or Peirce's sense, value
is a dyad, a 'secondness', and moral is a triad, a 'thirdness'. Value is
'quality for some other' (someone, something .. some) and moral is 'quality
for some other, evaluated by some third' or simply 'value for some third'.
(This view follows Peirce's triadic structures of logic, - semeiotics. I
may diverge from Peirce in using them in an ontological/metaphysical
analysis.)

I see these categories of quality as more basic than, and foundational for,
the more empirical 'four levels of reality' .
If we try to understand the physical reality in light of this triadic
structure, it is clear that the 'pure' or monadic quality cannot be 'met
upon', there is no relating to pure quality. In modern terms: we cannot
meassure monadic quality, monadic quality is 'preexperiental', it is before
experience, before any possibility of a subject-object divide, as Pirsig
says. But it is also before value, before relation or interaction, before
'things' and properties; no thing meets upon monadic quality, because it is
the ground of things, and relation, and value.
Hence, the true undivided monadic quality is only to be presumed.
Given this elusive and transitory nature of monadic quality, we may excuse
the pragmatic equation of quality and value, but I think it would be
valuable to move towards a more detailed analysis.

As I have written before, we can analyse the levels of reality in terms of
relations (- or value, though there are more and possibly confusing
connotations of the term value). I will make another attempt here.
Simple relations (dyadic qualities, values) are unmediated, but they can
still bring about great complexity (and - to us - beauty), such as a the
crystal structures in limestone caves, through a combinatorial process.

Life, or the biological level, is grounded upon mediated or triadic
relations, upon the possibility of the relations of relations, of values of
value. Off course this is not the 'whole explanation' of life; but triadic
quality, or in Pirsigs terms 'moral', is a prerequisite for life.
Secondarily, we humans have made non-biological devices which are based on
triadic relations, and maybe - well, looking at the history of technology,
- surely we will some day make such autonomous selfsustaining devices which
are worthy of the name artificial life (and I fear that day).

Anyway, the distinction between the simple combination of relations and the
genuine triadic relation lies in that the relation is *for* some third. The
meaning and importance of this distinction may be seen by referring to
Bateson's definition of information: 'a difference which makes a
difference', and turning this around: what is the prerequisite for a
difference to make a difference? Bateson says of the difference between a
glass of hot water and a glass of cold water, that the difference is
nowhere to be found (in physical, objective space), it is not in one or the
other glass, it is not in the space between them. The difference that makes
a difference, makes a difference because it is a difference *for* some
third ('third' because 'difference' already implies a dyadic relation). As
we can see this is the germ of 'the subject', - and 'the object'; and at
the same time this shows why the object cannot be an object entirely on its
own (object as 'perceived object') and the subject cannot be a subject
entirely on its own.

The subject is only a subject by way of establishing the triadic relation,
and the triadic relation involves necessarily something which is *for* the
third, something 'external'; yet as we know, being dreamers, this
'external' may be a projection, and this is the source for the
subjectivistic quandery of the reality of the external world. But this
quandery neglects the metaphysical prerequisite for there being a subject,
Our seemingly (for the 'subjectivist') strange connection with the external
reality does need an explanation, one that does not explain more than we
want (see below), and the explanation is provided by the general idea of
evolution, of our being in and of our world.

And the object (this is tricky, due to the fact that our common
understanding of the term 'object' is that of an 'independent reality', -
in fact I believe this may be an unresolved issue in Peirce's philosophy)
is necessarily an object *for* some subject; but this does not counter the
progress of 'objective' science, technology, and so forth, because any
instrumental knowlewdge of the world is equally a knowledge of an 'object'
*for* some subject, this subject including the experimental apperatus and
whichever means of knowing we use.
On the other hand, this inherently experiental view of the object does not
exclude there being a preexperiental reality, a world of dyadic relations;
quite the contrary we have to presume such dyadic reality if we are in any
way to understand our world (or - more correct - in order to achieve the
simplest understanding, the one that explains enough but not more than
necessary - this powerful principle is called Ockhams razor in epistemology).

The above is not at all adequate, but I have to go eat.

Hugo

_________________________
Diana wrote:
>Hi squad
>
>Remember this:
>
>Value
>Value is a synonym for Quality. Value encompasses what are usually known
>as causation and substance. Value is neither a subject nor an object but
>what creates subjects and objects. A value-based metaphysics explains
>reality better than one that divides reality into an inner subjective
>realm and an outer objective realm because it integrates subjects and
>objects, mind and body, science and art and many other anomalies. Value
>is understood through the sense of value.
>
>Doesn't anybody have any comments on this one?

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