From: Elizaphanian (Elizaphanian@members.v21.co.uk)
Date: Tue Dec 17 2002 - 13:17:46 GMT
Hi David, (and Matt)
I think you're gathering all the good material together, but I would
reiterate that I'm after something systematic (and therefore condensed),
rather than a reiteration at length. But I very much think that you are on
the right lines in describing Pirsig's position.
However, in this last post you are bringing in an 'outside' authority -
Campbell - which I think is a mistake at this point in our discussions.
(BTW, where does Pirsig refer to him?) I think that for the time being we
should just stick to what Pirsig says and not try and either support or
criticise it. In other words the objective is clarity (about Pirsig's
position) not truth (is what Pirsig says correct).
But as you brought Campbell into it, I think I should comment on an aspect
of what you say. You wrote:
> And as Campbell
> tells us, all myths say essentially the same thing and this core message
is
> also the core of the mystical vision. To paraphrase the mythologist, the
> myths tell us that all things, all forms and all beings are issued forth
out
> of the ONE, that all things and beings are manifestations of, particular
> inflections of some aspect of the ONE, that all things and beings are
filled
> and supported by the ONE during their period of manifestation, and that
they
> then all return to that source of being.
Now, I happen to believe that it is not the case that 'all myths say
essentially the same thing'. And I think it would be fruitful to explain
why, because it feeds back into so many of our disagreements. In particular
I would like to explain something about Wittgenstein's approach, because -
like Christianity - it lies at the back of many of our disagreements (what
is below, between the ~~~ is copied in from an essay I wrote a few years
ago). Whereas Pirsig (and you?) accept that people are either Platonist or
Aristotelean, I would say that I'm 'Wittgensteinian', and his philosophical
method doesn't fit into those categories.
~~~
Wittgenstein developed the notion of 'family resemblance', which is central
here. Consider games - board games, ball games, Olympic Games and so on.
What is it that makes them all games? In fact there is no common element;
rather there is a network of overlapping similarities which allow us to
groups these activities together. What is important is that the notion of
family resemblance provides a new *analogy* with which to categorise things,
one that doesn't try and reduce games to a single vital constituent, without
which a game would cease to be a game. For Wittgenstein the ability to be a
good philosopher depended upon the ability to think up good analogies or
counter-examples which allow for a new way of seeing connections, or which
provoked the observer to 'change the aspect' under which a phenomenon was
seen. This gives an insight into something that Wittgenstein was very
concerned with: the urge to find the essence of something, and possibly then
to explain it. We should focus on the differences involved with different
games (that we normally would accept are games) in order to avoid coming up
with a new definition of what a game is that would actually exclude various
forms. Rather than trying to look below the surface, we should simply
observe the practice, and accept that the practices cannot be shoe-horned
into a particular intellectual framework - our minds need to switch off.
Wittgenstein felt that this urge was the result of the obsessive worship of
science in our culture, and the desire to apply scientific methods to other
fields. More deeply, he saw this as the outworking of the Platonic style of
doing philosophy: for Wittgenstein the source of the traditional approach to
philosophy was Socrates . He once said to his friend Drury, 'It has puzzled
me why Socrates is regarded as a great philosopher. Because when Socrates
asks for the meaning of a word and people give him examples of how that word
is used, he isn't satisfied but wants a unique definition. Now if someone
shows me how a word is used and its different meanings, that is just the
sort of answer I want.' Or consider these remarks, the first made in 1931,
the second in 1945: 'Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling:
what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that
prove nothing and clarify nothing?'; 'Socrates keeps reducing the Sophist to
silence, - but does he have right on his side when he does this? Well it is
true that the Sophist does not know what he thinks he knows; but that is no
triumph for Socrates. It can't be a case of "You see! you don't know it!" -
nor yet, triumphantly, of "So none of us knows anything".'
I expect that Wittgenstein had in mind a passage such as this one, from
Socrates' first speech in the Phaedrus: 'in every discussion there is only
one way of beginning if one is to come to a sound conclusion, and that is to
know what one is discussing... Let us then begin by agreeing upon a
definition'. In the conclusion of the Phaedrus Socrates restates this: 'a
man must know the truth about any subject that he deals with; he must be
able to define it.' For Wittgenstein it is this emphasis upon definability
in words which is the source of all our metaphysical illusions, illusions
which 'lie as deep in us as the forms of our language'. As Baker and Hacker
put it in their commentary on the Investigations, 'Wittgenstein noted that
some of the deep distortions of meaning, explanation and understanding
originate with Plato'.
~~~
Now this is something which Matt has said much about in previous posts, and
I needn't add to that, but here the relevance is to what you say about
myth - that 'all myths say essentially the same thing'. We can have a
conversation about different mythologies, I don't deny that they all
resemble each other, or have elements in common, but I just want to point
out that there doesn't HAVE to be an 'essence' of myth, and, in fact, that
the very protean character of mythology is what makes it work. To not try
and classify or 'encapsulate' mythology is surely better than saying that
all mythology is reducible to (ie can be Socratically defined as) the hero's
journey, or the quest, or any other 'essence' - without which something
which we would normally have accepted was a myth was now no longer accepted
as such. The question I would pose is this: why does there have to be an
'essence' of mythology, and what is it in your manner of thinking that leads
to that necessity?
For what should now be clear is that the Platonic path postulates a 'One'
because that is the ultimate essence - that is the ultimate answer to the
Socratic search for definitions. But the One is not God. It is an
intellectual product that I'm quite convinced doesn't have higher Quality
than the full Greek pantheon that it came to replace.
Sam
The lover of myth is in a sense the lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of
wonders. (Aristotle)
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