From: Matthew Stone (mattstone_2000@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Wed Feb 26 2003 - 09:48:43 GMT
Hi Platt, thanks for the reply,
> Is man not the center of thought? Who or what would
> you nominate as
> the center of thought if not man?
When I say man is at the centre of thought I am
denoting the reciprocity between the subject and the
object that constitutes thought. Man thinks, but
thought also defines man. This ‘humanism’ is a term
used by Foucault to describe not only man’s inability
to recognise this circularity, but also the inability
to think ‘outside’ it. E.g., morality is defined by
man, but also defines how man thinks about morality:
all whilst man thinks he is engaging with ‘reality’,
when clearly he isn’t. To decentre man here is to
open thought up to questioning the very basis, the
very frontier, of this circular process. One can see
now why I feel the MoQ has a role to play, as it sees
‘universals’ not as universal, but mere patterns of
value – man can be decentred.
> Who is "they?"
‘They’ are this fundamental concepts created by man,
e.g. truth, reason, morality.
> Yes, I do deny that truth, morals and thought are
> the result of chance
> and change....I
> believe is it absolutely and forever moral to
> eliminate slavery. How about
> you?
Are you asserting that all truth, all morals, are
universal, or only some? In any case, you’re
effectively arguing against the last 40 years of
thought. If slavery is ‘absolutely’ immoral, surely
it must have been immoral before mankind came along –
this is absurd: as absurd as gravity existing before
Newton, to paraphrase Pirsig himself.
> Pirsig doesn't "deconstruct" SOM. He points out its
> essential
> weakness.
I would argue that he does deconstruct it: he traces
its development, it’s key moments, such as to point
out the cracks in it’s foundation – this is
deconstruction. But I’m interested in the idea of the
MoQ including SOM.
> Could
> you explain the postmodernist concern with
> "humanism" in thought? I
> thought postmodernists were, for the most part,
> humanists.
I think the ‘humanism’ thing is explained in my first
paragraph.
> I fail to see any agreement between the MOQ and
> postmodern theory
> which begins by denying the existence of a universal
> truth while at the
> same time asserting its denial to be universally
> true. Do you see the
> absurdity?
Pirsig interrogates the very basis upon which thought
takes place; he shows how thought within the SOM is
not, as previously thought, a true window on reality,
but rather just one way of perceiving reality; he
nihilistically denies the rightful sovereignty of any
mode of thought – this is virtually a dictionary
definition of postmodernism as it applies to discourse
on thought. And I think your sentence perhaps
misrepresents the postmodernists – I think they would
rather it be phrased “all I can be sure of is that
there is no universal truth”.
Matt
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