LS Explain the subject-object metaphysics


Horse (horse@wasted.demon.nl)
Thu, 14 May 1998 03:35:42 +0100


Hi there
There doesn't seem to have been much traffic recently. Are people
getting bored with trying to define the SOM. Is it proving to be as
elusive as a very elusive thing on a very elusive day. I was under the
impression that this was at the heart of the fight to elevate the MoQ
to the predominant system of thought. If the MoQ is superior to SOM
then how can we show this, if there is little argument to find out what
it is that MoQ is superior to. Are we to take the MoQ to the doors of
Science and Academia with a note explaining that whilst we aren't quite
sure what a SOM is we're quite sure that MoQ is superior, so would you
please put aside all your ideas and carefully structured belief systems
built up over the last 2500 years and just accept what we say.

>> Magnus wrote:
>> "Thank you for an interesting and important post. However, I wouldn't say
>> that SOM is synonymous with dualism. At some point or another, I think every
>> world view is a dualism.

> I agree with Magnus here.

Whoa there! Hold on. If at some point every world view is a dualism,
then how can SOM avoid being synonymous with dualism. Something is
amiss!

First point:
Not all world views are dualist. World views can be either monist,
dualist or pluralist (dualism is pluralist, I suppose, being greater
than one ). It also depends upon where or how you consider a world view
or at which level. MoQ starts with Quality, this is divided into DQ and
SQ, SQ is divided into Inorganic, Organic, Social and Intellectual. So
is MoQ monist, dualist or pluralist. It's all three dependent on where
you look.

Second Point:
Synonymous does not mean, nor did I intend it to mean, identical or
exclusive. The phrase itself implies that it is dualist, but is this
inclusive, or exclusive. Is reality divided into ONLY subject OR object
or is it subject AND object. In previous posts I have stated that
Pirsig does not refer to THE SOM, but to *A* SOM. There is a
difference. Subject/Object, Substance/Form, Mind/Matter, Sense/Idea,
Living/Non-Living, Person/Non-Person. Are these inclusive or exclusive.
The SOM seems to indicate that they are exclusive. But this doesn't mean
that this is the whole of SOM.

Pirsig makes the point that SOM is a system which excludes Value/Quality
as a major part of the metaphysics or at least reduces it to 'mere'
subjectivity and then reduces subjective to "just what you like" - in
other words, 'mere' opinion. This is reminiscent of the Logical
Positivist view. If a statement cannot be tested or measured or
expressed mathematically then it is meaningless. Philosophy, according
to the positivists is merely the analysis of language and subjectivism
is merely emotivist rambling.

This seems to be at the heart of the problem in defining SOM. Whatever
you say it is there is always a school of thought that says that this
not the REAL SOM or that there really isn't a SOM and then in the next
breath tell you that you are not being objective or rational, or you
are being emotive etc.

Where Pirsig seems to take issue most is where there is a denial of
value in SOM - hence the example of the stove. This denial of value as
anything other than 'just what you like' is probably most emphatic on
the part of the positivists. What he is most frustrated with is not
just the SOM, but the attempt to reduce everything to Object
Metaphysics. Subjectiveness is meaningless there forethere is only
objectivity and hence objects are the whole of reality.

So where does this leave us?
1) There seems to be little doubt that SOM refers to any system that is
at least dualistic.
2) It would appear that the dualism referred to is of the exclusive
either/or type.
3) The attempt by the Logical Positivists to reduce the nature of Value
to emotivism or subjectivism, neither of which have any relevance.

I think that this last item is the key to the SOM.
SOM is any system of belief which reduces Value/Quality to 'mere'
opinion. Value cannot be measured using empirical method. Value is
relative so it is not certain, therefore it is not rational. Value
cannot be observed so no truth value can be extracted from an
observational sentence, in fact no observational sentence can
constructed that pertains to Value.
SOM is the denial of Value as a REAL thing.

I would be happy if someone would critcise the above and show me that I
am wrong, then at least we can start to make some headway. Does anyone
out there have any alternative ideas as to the nature of SOM which they
would care to share. Not only what it isn't, but what it is.

Horse

"Making history, it turned out, was quite easy.
It was what got written down.
It was as simple as that!"
Sir Sam Vimes.

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