Greetings,
Jonathan, it was a pleasure to read your last posting as it neatly fits in with the prevalent
philosophical view of mind and body. That you see this as being allied to a MoQ gives weight to my
contention that there are few serious philosophers who hold an SOM position. I do however disagree
with your definition of materialism and believe that it is this simplistic notion that has got
Pirsig into deep trouble on the SOM question:
JONATHAN WROTE:
"The materialists say that reality is *material* reality.
That leads to the SOM position that mind (subject) is material -
otherwise mind isn't real and doesn't "really" exist."
This is a naive materialist position which can be shown to be false, or at least trivial.
A coherent materialist will not claim that "reality IS material reality." He/she will instead simply
hold that mind MUST also have a physical aspect to it. In addition a coherent materialist will not
claim that, "MIND is the matter which functions as SUBJECT." More accurate is the view that mind is
utterly distinct from matter but requires matter in order to exist.
When materialism is represented in its more sophisticated and less 'popular' form, the problems you
point to do not require resolution. Indeed, the process (small p) philosophy you outline is entirely
compatible with materialism and - for what it is worth - very much reflects my own position on this
matter. It is also the most fashionable (when coupled with the doctrine of panpsychism)
philosophical theory of mind/body interaction put forward by materialists today.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
<mailto:struan@clara.net>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:48 BST