Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Thu, 19 Feb 1998 02:54:32 +0100
I sense a cultural immune system at work. (There should be a
siren going off here, or something.)
On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Magnus Berg wrote:
>
> The day my interest in philosophy is dependent on budget, I hope I have
> the sense to quit.
Good. I'm grossly dubious about achademia -- this church of
reason. My good friend and mentor here (the only real philosopher in UT's
whole department) just retiered saying, "I'm so glad that I don't have to
think academically anymore; now I can just think."
>
> Philosophers don't dare to get emotionally involved because then,
> their so called "objectiveness" gets polluted by their personal
> likes and dislikes, what we call value. And value is something
> that is totally forbidden in all "objective" science.
Well regardless of what they may say, these people are emotionally
involved. Almost everybody in philosophy picke some catagory (usually
ending in -ism) and takes it as a kind of battle cry: Kantian Formalism!
Hegalianism! Marksism! Analythic Philosophy! Plain language philosophy!
Metaphysics of Quallity! ...
Now I've told you were I stand in all that. I'm influenced by
Hegel and Wittgenstein and Erving Goffman, as well as a host of other
gurus: Pirsig, Joseph Campball, Nietzsche... on and on, but I don't have
any real partisan feelings about these guys.
>
> No pun intended, but sometimes I'm beginning to doubt if you
> really read ZMM and Lila. All I said above is there, but much
> clearer than my ramblings. But if you're also trapped in the
> church of reason, I can understand your reasoning. There's no
> way to fit the MoQ within the church of reason.
No, because the MoQ wants to be a church in itself. It'd be like
trying to fit Catholocism inside Islam.
But should the MoQ be a church? An institution ("built not on
individual strength but individual weekness")? As I've said, if your going
to bow down there are worst places to do it, but...
> > Put this tool in your philosophical toolbox:
> > *** Whenever you have a dichotomistic distionction (everything
> > is either A or B) iterate it -- that is, apply it to itself and see where
> > it falls. ***
> > So: MBd is clearly a thought or system of thought. It is not
> > spacially extended, MBd has no body. It's an element of Mind.
> > But what about SOM (knower-known)? It's obviously not a knowing
> > consciousness; it's something (namely an idea) we know/are aware of. SOM
> > is an object -- a Gegenstand (literally "stands onver against"
> > consciounsness).
> > So I hope now that it's clear that SOM and MBd are different.
> > Pirsig missed that little point.
>
> I don't get what that was intended to prove exactly. The toolbox tool you
> gave us is by our vocabulary a philosopholical tool, not a philosophical.
If you want to make that distinction, o-kay. The point is that
it's a real handy tool that will serve you well if you remember it. (Did
anybody think to iterate the subjective-objective dichotomy? When I decide
that "That cloud is shaped like a rabbet," is subjective and "I'm wearing
a brown shirt," is objective, is that decision subjective or is it a brute
fact?)
> But that's not the point. The point, which I was trying to make last week,
> is that Pirsig did *not* miss that difference. What he did, was to wrap 'em
> all up in the same bag and call all of them SOM.
Here's another handy tool: Whenever you get a "What is X" question
the first thought you should have is, "It's an English word. As such it
means what we (collectivly) use it to mean."
Well I have no interest in carrying on a private debate. I'm
interested in a public debate. (Like the old Irish saying: "Is this a
private fight or can anyone join?") What about the rest of you? What do
you think?
I showed that Mind (insubstantial) dosn't mean the same as
"(knowing)subject" (what Diana likened to the Catholic idea of the soul)
and niether mean the same as "subjective" (a proposition which is less
than a brute fact -- subject to interpritation). (Now I'm talking about
the WORDS here. That's why I called this "vocabulary." This is by pure
virtue of how the words are used -- nothing metaphysical.)
And that Body (spacialy extended) dosn't mean the same as
"(known)object" (you can know an idea, for example) and niether mean the
same as "objective" (a brute fact).
Does everyone agree that far?
Now clearly Pirsig does colapse these words under Subject and
Object. If I drew a distinction between plant and animal, and then drew a
distionction between vertabret and invertabret and said that both of these
could still be characterized as a plant-animal distinction you'd find that
odd right? Where "Plant" ment plant and invertabret, and "animal" ment
animal and vertebret... You'd say, "But these are different things!"
He makes this move w/o offering any justification or explanation
for it, and that is why I assume (of coure I can't know -- nobdy does but
he himself) that he just didn't catch it. If anyone knows a place where
he's clear that he's doing this and explains why please enlighten.
And a further point is that it's not inconsequential. It makes a
differance whether he's attaking a metaphysics built on Mind-Body (which
is what I think he primarily has in mind) or on Knower-known.
So there's my POV. Magnas disagres. But rather than trading blows,
or pressing on w/ Kant (unless of course you want to see the rest of Kant)
I think I'll shut-up long enough to hear what the rest of you think.
>
> And about the "brute fact" part. History, relativity and most of all,
> quantum mechanics should be enough to show that there's no such truth
> as a "brute fact" truth.
I didn't say there are brut facts. I said that is what we mean
when we say that something is "objective." I've made no metaphysical
claims. I'm just watching the language. Whether you believe me or not, my
friends, I've said very little about my own beliefs about metaphysics
(which would suprise you, but that's neither here nor there). I'm trying
to raise a question -- not lay down an answer.
So speak your minds everybody.
Donny
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