From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Feb 05 2005 - 22:29:35 GMT
Scott and all MOQers:
Scott said to dmb:
Since Plato and Plotinus felt that the "way" was through the intellect to
Intellect, while the Romantics (and James) tended to disparage the
intellect, as Pirsig does (with respect to spiritual advancement), I wonder
how you can claim this. (That Pirsig's mysticism is descended from Plato and
Plotinus, from the East, from Native American mysticism, but not from the
Modern Romantics.)
dmb says:
I'm truely baffled as to why you persist in this error. I don't know of any
kind of mystic who says the mystical truth can be apprehended through
intellect. It contradicts the most basic assertion of philosophical
mysticism and, as I've pointed out, directly to you at least a half a dozen
times, Plointus says the same thing as Pirsig on this point. Please, do me a
favor. Don't ignore it again. Look. Its right in front of your eyes...
Pirsig says, "Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable
and can be apprehended only by non-rational means, has been with us since
the beginning of history." (ZAMM, p25)
"What Phaedrus has been talking about as Quality, Socrates appears to have
described as the soul, self moving, the source of all things. There is no
contradiction." ZAMM p349
"..Phaedrus was clearly a Platonist by temperment and when the classes
shifted to Plato he was greatly relieved. His Quality and Plato's Good were
so similar that if it hand't been for some notes Phaedrus left I might have
thought they were identical." ZAMM p332
Plotinus says, "of this One no descripton nor scientific knowledge is
possible" and "he who wishes to see the Intelligible must abandon all
imagery of the perceptible in order to contemplate what is beyond the
perceptible, so he who wishes to contemplate what is beyond the Intelligible
will attain the contemplation of it by letting go everything intelligible".
"I want to say that the ultimate journey taken by Phaedrus and described by
the narrator was the Mystical self,.. Mysticism is always associated with
some sort of unitive consciousness, a consciousness experientially united
with ultimate reality." Guidebook to ZAMM p26
dmb continues:
See? This is what kills me about the attempt to hang SOM, James, Kant,
and/or Schleiermacher's romanitic feelings around the neck of the MOQ. The
philosophical mystics and the perennial philosophers claim that mysticism
"has been with us since the beginning of history." Plato and Plotinus are
widely misunderstood by our culture because of the blind spot that has
developed in the West. In fact, some would argue that the lights had already
gone out by the time of Plato and that even Plotinus is only partially
reconstructing what was already considered ancient in his time.
One of the reasons that Pirsig explores the etemology of RHT, explores the
sophists, the myths and rituals of the social level, the undecorated
mysticism of the Native Americans, is to get out from under all the clap
trap, to get around that blind spot and get back at something that was
driven underground long ago.
I'd like to recommend Peter Kingsley. His area is the pre-Socratics. If
you've ever wondered what Pirsig was getting at when he asserted that
mysticism goes all the way back to the beginning, ever wondered what that
meant in greater detail, Kingsley will blow your mind. I guarantee it.
I've mentioned his ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY AND MAGIC before, but there
is also IN THE DARK PLACES OF WISDOM and the one I've just started is called
simply REALITY. There are some dubious thinkers who quote Kingsley out there
on the web, but you'll find he's got a proper education, is a professional
academic, can translate ancient primary sources himself and all that.
But don't take my word for it. I'm only trying to tell you what a gazillion
philosophical mystics would tell you. INCLUDING PLOTINUS!!!!! Sigh. Whew.
Later,
dmb
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