From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Fri Jan 30 2004 - 17:18:35 GMT
Bo
Bo said:
OK, we may be reconciled here if you accept Truth in the sense of (ZMM
p.368)
"Truth. Knowledge. That which is independent of what anyone thinks of
it. The ideal that Socrates died for. The ideal that Greece alone
possesses for the first time in the history of the world."
Paul:
That was their definition of truth after it was separated from belief
and placed higher than the good.
Bo said:
Still I wonder why the "objective" term so inedible?
Paul:
Because it implies the possibility of correspondence to
objects-in-themselves. That is one view of truth but there are others.
Bo said:
"Truth" is often reinforced by putting an "objective" in front of it to
indicate something more than just plain truthfulness.
Paul:
Well, you need to be precise about the way you are using "objective."
When it is used to describe good journalism, for instance, it has more
in common with "impartial." It is often linked in with a scientific
approach of being careful when making inferences. Epistemologically, it
assumes the pre-existence of facts that can be known or unknown.
Bo said:
Knowledge is "objective", and "..independent of what anyone thinks of
it".
Paul:
That's your definition of knowledge, inherited from the Greeks. In
Plato's dialogues, you often find his characters using the "analytic"
truths of mathematics to demonstrate this "objectivity" but even those
have been shown to be one from a possible many, as described by Pirsig
in the section on Poincare in ZMM.
Bo said:
Is there a better definition of objectivity?
Paul:
Yes. High intellectual quality.
Paul previously quoted Pirsig:
> Jason asks the question, "What distinguishes a high quality
> intellectual idea from a lower quality one?" [p.10] Pirsig, in his
> annotations, replies, "Its truth, mainly. Also the magnitude of the
> questions it answers or problems it solves. Other things being equal,
> its rhetorical "elegance" is also important in the mathematical sense
> of that term." [p.32]
Bo said:
The better intellectual pattern is the one that raises KNOWLEDGE to the
greatest distance from the subjective. Not a mere social good of being
honest.
Paul:
Here we agree, if "subjective" is used in the epistemological sense and
translated by the MOQ to mean low quality intellectual patterns. Low
quality intellectual patterns are those that have not discerned between
Dynamic or intellectual quality and the quality at different levels and
have been overly influenced or dominated by biological or social
patterns. The MOQ says that the historical reaction (starting with the
Greeks) of intellect to the influence of these lower level patterns of
value was to cut values out of its description of the world completely.
This is the enormous mistake that the MOQ wants to put right. This is
the root expansion of rationality.
"In the past empiricists have tried to keep science free from values.
Values have been considered a pollution of the rational scientific
process. But the Metaphysics of Quality makes it clear that the
pollution is from threats to science by static lower levels of
evolution: static biological values such as the biological fear that
threatened Jenner's smallpox experiment; static social values such as
the religious censorship that threatened Galileo with the rack. The
Metaphysics of Quality says that science's empirical rejection of
biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is also
morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a
higher evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns.
But the Metaphysics of Quality also says that Dynamic Quality - the
value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious
one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one-is
another matter altogether. Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than
static scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of
science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church
authorities to suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an integral
part of science. It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself."
[Lila p.418-419]
Regards
Paul
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