From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Oct 16 2002 - 13:53:58 BST
Hi Patrick:
> Finally we disagree on something ;-)
How dull life would be if we always agreed on everything. :-)
> > "It (an ad hominem attack) is committed when instead of trying to
> > disprove the truth of what is asserted one attacks the man who made the
> > assertion. The personal character of a man is logically irrelevant to the
> > truth or falsehood of what he says, or the correctness or incorrectness
> > of his argument. The way in which this irrelevant argument may sometimes
> > persuade is through the psychological process of transference. Where an
> > attitude of disapproval towards a person can be
> > evoked it may possibly tend to overflow the strictly emotional field and
> > become disagreement with what that person says. But this connection is
> > only psychological, not logical. Even the most wicked of men may tells
> > the truth or argue correctly."
> >
> > In other words, Pirsig's bout with insanity and anger at the loss of his
> > son is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the arguments he presents in
> > Lila, Chap. 24 (or any other chapter for that matter).
>
> In the quote you gave above, an ad hominem attack is 'psychological, not
> logical'. But is a metaphysics that puts Quality at bottom of all, logical?
Initial premises are usually matters of faith. For example, at the bottom
of science are a number of faith premises. Quality "at the bottom of all"
is no exception. But once an initial premise is asserted, logic and
empirical evidence should follow to show the truth of the premise.
> You are fond of quoting a certain passage of Lila where Pirsig discusses
> 'truth', in that the MoQ says that there could be multiple truths, that are
> judged according to the intellectual or pragmatical value they bring.
I suggest that truth according to the MOQ is judged by its "goodness"
which may or may not be of intellectual or pragmatic value. Recall that
Pirsig made some harsh observations about pragmatism.
>And
> although the term 'psychological' is framed in a SOM-perspective, isn't
> that term about our experiences, which go hand in hand with values (or
> morals, for that matter)?
There are lots of terms related to experience. Psychology is more about
studying how people think and behave rather than the mystery of
consciousness which is studied by everyone from physicists to priests,
without much success. Experience (consciousness, awareness)
remains an enigma.
> Holding in mind Pirsigs connection between multiple truths and values, I
> quote John B (recent post) here: "I find Pirsig does quite a good job of
> pointing out the close connections and significant differences between
> insanity and deep involvement in dynamic quality."
Yes, John B. does quite a good job of pointing out lots of things.
> Dynamic quality is at
> the basis of truth, according to my understanding of the MoQ. Logic and
> arguments about truth or falsity are static qualities, but aren't they
> secondary to dynamic quality? To quote William James: "Instinct [DQ] leads,
> intelligence [sq] does but follow."
Yes, we agree. That's a great quote from James.
> (The part on political correctness I didn't quite follow, maybe because I'm
> tired; I hope that I didn't miss an essential part of your point of view)
Part of the political correctness ideology and attitude is to ignore the
content of what is said and analyze instead the psychology of the
speaker. For example, if you're opposed to affirmative action you are
labeled a "racist." If you hold firmly held beliefs, you're called
"prejudiced" or hung up by an "incorrigible final vocabulary." If you
support capitalism you're "heartless and greedy." Such ad hominems
reflect low quality thinking.
Platt
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