From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Tue Aug 10 2004 - 17:06:33 BST
From: Platt Holden, sent Monday, August 09, 2004 12:10 PM
Subject: Re: MD Proposal to discuss a Metaphysics of Value
> Herewith a few comments on the first part of your chapter entitled
> "Mechanical Garden," with the caveat that my understanding or lack of it
my
> change as I read more of your philosophy.
> The part I refer to has the subhead, ""Reality' is what we experience." As
> I went through it I was struck by its similarity to Kant's assertion that
> we can never know a "thing in itself," evidenced by your statement,
> "We have contact only with the boundaries and surfaces of things, never
with
> being itself."
> Many of your other statements led me to conclude that you are a firm
> believer in the philosophy of Idealism, statements such as:
> --What we are actually sensing are the responses of our own cerebro-
> nervous system.
> --The bottom line is we can only know what we experience.
> --I do not even know for a certainty that what I have called a rose has a
> being of its own distinct from my cognizance of it.
> The inclusion of "I," "my," "we" and "our" in such statements presumes a
> human subject conscious of an object, or simply, no objects without human
> experience. Not only is this anthropocentrism, but a major premise of
> Subject/Object Metaphysics (SOM) which, as you know, Pirsig rails against
> in his Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ).
Platt, I don't think it is possible to expunge "duality" from the
experienced world,
and I don't believe the Professor has done it. He has stated (probably in
the
Magritte paper) that Quality is the primary "empirical reality" of the
world.
I'm saying that Value is the essence of "man's reality", which is the same
thing.
Note, however, that neither of us has said that "empirical reality" or
"man's reality"
is the Ultimate Reality. I don't know if Pirsig believes in the Ultimate
Reality (Essence);
but I do know that in order to have "experience" you must have both an
observer
(subject) and an object, and they must have a progenitor. (I'm sure the
Professor
wouldn't deny that.) Finite existence is a polarized system (as you'll see
later in
my thesis) in which sensibility [conscious awareness in man] confronts
"otherness"
and turns it into experience. There is no way around this. We can rail
against this
fact of nature -- call it an SOM, an SOB, (whatever) -- but the duality is
always there.
If you can't accept the duality, you are forced to conclude that it is an
illusion whose
ultimate source is a transcendent Essence. That's not a "belief system",
Platt; it's
pure logic! But many philosophers are not willing to take that step because
it may
be viewed as either "unscientific" or "idealistic"-- translate " it's
unfashionable
in our intellectually enlightened age" .
> Given an Idealist view of reality, it's not much of a jump from "Reality
> is essentially subjective" to "Reality is just an opinion" to "My opinion
> is just as good as yours." Reality then degenerates quickly to the
> postmodernist view that "It's a fact there are no facts" or my personal
> favorite, "Events believed to be real are really not real but we believe
> them to be real because we believe everyone else believes they are real."
I can't agree with you here; but I think you have to go through that thought
process.
You have to reduce everything to absurdity and start all over again as a
nihilist.
That seems to be what you are doing ... I did the same. You start with
nothing and
build from there. It's not the "abysmal black pit" portrayed by the
mystics;
actually, it's rather refreshing -- probably because nothingness is our
essential heritage.
Here's a tip: you won't find the answer in words but, rather, in your state
of mind
[feelings]. When you complete this exercise, you'll understand that
subjectivity takes
precedence over objectivity. Without subjective awareness there can be
nothing --
for you or anyone else.
> Pirsig attempts to escape from all this by putting experience prior to any
> subject or object, and making experience (pure awareness) synonymous with
> Dynamic Quality.
Again, you can't have experience without otherness; your "a priori" choice
must be
either awareness (proprietary sensibility) or otherness (objective reality).
If you
put objective reality prior to sensibility you become an existentialist, a
product of
biological evolution whose reality is a meaningless otherness. Make it
sensibility,
and you'll find Essence to be accessible to you as Value. I'm willing to
bet
that you'll choose sensibility, and I'll be the first to welcome you to the
folds of
Essentialism.
> Personally I'm of two minds about this. It's hard for me to get over the
> hurdles of on the one hand, the tautological nature of the Idealist's
> position (If something is just a thought, whoever thinks is just a
> thought)), and on the other hand the claim that Quality comes prior to
> subjects and objects, a claim being asserted by a subject who must of
> necessity come first to make such a claim.
> Anyway, it all gets confusing, at least to me, for two reasons: 1) the
> built in bias of our language to the subject/object interpretation of
> experience (the word "quality" presupposes a quality "of" something) and
> 2) the violation of common sense of the Idealist view (We cannot eat
> oysters as they are in themselves.)
Forget the "language"... and the labels. Be intuitive; go to your feelings.
Once you've discovered the primacy of Essence as something realizable in
the Value experienced, you'll stop playing these silly word games. Then,
if you still need a label, there will always be somebody eager to peg you
with one!
> Finally, I'm also somewhat puzzled by your use of the term "value" as it
> doesn't seem to connote in your contexts any sense of "goodness" or
> "betterness." But, I should reserve judgment until I've read more.
You're doing just fine, Platt. Value is next to last in my thesis; finally
there is
Freedom. Take it slowly. Try to visualize it as an overall concept rather
than
a series of premises. The "morality" comes (to paraphrase Socrates) from
knowing the Value of your essential self.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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