Wed, 4 Nov 1998 Donald T Palmgren
wrote
> Bodvar, you make a very big deal about the labeling of 'SOM' (I
> remember you once said that that was the real importance to the MoQ and
> not Quality -- "He could have used any term [insted of Q]," were, I
> believe, your words!).
Hi Donny and Group.
I still stand by that, it is the Dynamic-Static division that is
important, but 'quality' has this ambiguous 'quality' that make it
so VALUABLE.
> But identifying 'SOM' wasn't at all Pirsig's
> original doing. 'Anti-SOM ' philosophy has been around for a very long
> time -- It's perhaps the oldest human philosophy and the foundation of
> magic and religion going back to Lascaux. I've argued this point here
> before and recieved no real responce, much less a refutation. If you
> define SOM as "The position that the knowing subject and the known object
> are ontologically seperate and irreducable -- not able to be derived from
> one-another or from any other entity" as we agreed to at the end of our
> 1st PROGRAM, then I can hand you bags full of non- or anti-SOMs. I can
> give you bits of Kant, Hegel, and Hippolet where they deny the above
> position -- Hegel even acuuses Kant of trying to esscape the S-O duality
> but never truly suceeding. They were against that above stated position;
> the Vadanta of Hinduism is; the Taoists; the Buddhists; The Gnostics...
> Many, many people identifyed and denied that position before RMP
> did. It's a major theam in philospophy, religion, mythology and art. This
> framework ('SOM' vs. non-SOM) was -well- established by the time the
> events of ZMM took place and that can be philosoplogically proven.
About WESTERN anti-subject/object thinkers before Pirsig. From time
to time I get greetings from people who have found my web piece, and
often they recommend thinkers or writers who "says the same things as
P." or "have much in common with P." and I look into books - the
last one being Iris Murdoch's "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals". (a
compilation of moral philosophers). There are revolts against the
mind-matter, ego-not ego, consciousness-the world, 'Ding für Uns-Ding
an Sich' aso, but never have I encountered writers/thinker who have
nailed the subject-object division AS A METAPHYSICS! That is, none
has identified the split as a world view that possibly can be
replaced by another world view! And - naturally - never encountered
any attempt at creating a new metaphysics.
All right subject-object or Ding..etc says the same I admit,
but the "replacement" lacks as I see it. You have brought up GWF
Hegel and say that he accused Kant of not having managed to get out
of the SO dualism and this is correct (re. Kant) but what about
his own...? My book on Hegel says:
" He tried to transcend Kant's distinction between the individual's
consciousness and the thing in itself. The absolute compasses both
the ego and the not-ego. 'About the things in themselves - as
absolutes - we know nothing else than that everything is a unity'".
After that Hegel goes on to demonstrate that the SO counterpoints are
a result of sheer necessity: nothing can be tall except something is
short .......etc. (which is correct!)
I am not saying that I have a full understanding of Hegel's ideas,
and moreover: the author of my book may not have understood him
either (what I read ABOUT Pirsig shocks me by the lack of
understanding of his real achievement), but it sounds as if Hegel
doesn't really shift metaphysical platform in the sense that Pirsig
does when he leaves the S-O split AND GOES MAD by looking into the
void outside of the SOM world - recovers by finding that it
carries him - and moves the division over to DYNAMIC "void"/STATIC
"void". Hegel, however was a scholar and did not risk anything that
radical and ostracizing. What he calls "spirit" or "absolute" may
possibly be Pirsig's DQ, but it sounds very much as "spiritual" and
opposite to "corporeal" as in Christianity - noting emanating from
sitting on hot stoves :-) (experience).
>From on here I agree with everything you write. My getting-away-with
.. formulation was a little awkward. When I scrutinize my attitude to
the Quality idea it dawns on me how general and - umm -
"aretê-tical" it is. Already with ZMM I felt that it solved MY
conflict and that my quest ended there. Even if it had been no LILA I
would have had my "peace of mind".
Bodvar
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