From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 09:34:02 GMT
Hi David,
We're _really_ getting to the essential difference in this thread. You
write about 'eudaimonic' values:
"This stuff is good. Its all about how to be good. But its not about the
truth. That's why it is not intellectual."
and then about friendship
"It a human value, but is unconcerned with the truth. Its about being good
and having a good life, but does not advance human knowledge or
understanding."
My central claim is that our awareness of the 'truth' is mediated through
our overall judgement, and that judgement is the central eudaimonic value
(ie wisdom, not truth. In Medieval terms, sapientia not scientia). You seem
to argue that we can appreciate 'truth' in an abstract way, ie apart from
our wider human understandings. Is that right?
Given what you say about friendship, how do you understand this comment from
Pirsig:
"Dusenberry really didn't have any methods. He opposed the static
"objectivity" he saw in other anthropologists because it shut out a deeper
intellectual understanding that came from his friendship with the Indians.
He just wrote and said whatever he liked. I suppose this could be called
"Dynamic intellectualism" though it is better not to invent new terms for
such an ancient trait." (LC note 149)
To my mind this is one of the places which would justify a claim that Pirsig
doesn't see intellect in the 'narrow' fashion (I just think it's rare and
cuts across other things that he claims). However, his last sentence seems
to imply that this form of understanding is 'dynamic' _precisely because_ he
doesn't think it qualifies as 'normal' or 'static' intellect. Whereas I
would say that this is precisely what the intellect, properly understood,
does: it integrates our emotional insight into an overall understanding
(and, to be specific, that emotional understanding can't be 'cashed out' in
symbolic terms).
So to sum up: on my understanding 'truth' is a subset of the eudaimonic
values, not the absolute determinant of the fourth level.
Sam
www.elizaphanian.v-2-1.net/home.html
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