From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Feb 03 2004 - 19:22:31 GMT
Paul:
> Because it implies the possibility of correspondence to
> objects-in-themselves. That is one view of truth but there are others.
DM: By the way things-in-themselves implies SOM and a
problematic gap between appearance and reality, so that aletheia
and truth as un-covering implies a unity prior to SO divide that
truth in its closeness to reality also implies.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: MD Objectivity, Truth and the MOQ
> Bo
>
> > Bo previously said:
> > OK, we may be reconciled here if you accept Truth in the sense of (ZMM
>
> > "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 previously said:
> > That was their definition of truth after it was separated from belief
> > and placed higher than the good.
>
> Bo said:
> Wrong, this is P. of ZMM's definition of what took place at that time.
>
> Paul:
> Of course that quote is Pirsig, but if you look at what he was
> interpreting, Plato had Socrates say that truth and knowledge were
> "recollected" and were not the mere product of belief.
>
> "But a soul that never saw the truth cannot take a human shape, since a
> human being must understand speech in terms of general forms, proceeding
> to bring many perceptions together into reasoned unity. That process is
> the recollection of the things our soul saw when it was travelling with
> god, when it disregarded the things we now call real and lifted up its
> head to what is truly real instead.
>
> For just this reason it is fair that only a philosopher's mind grows
> wings, since its memory always keeps as close as possible to those
> realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses
> reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most
> perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as
> perfect can be" [Plato, PHAEDRUS (249c)]
>
> "The things we now call real" as opposed to "what is truly real." It
> doesn't take too much interpretation.
>
> Bo said:
> Socrates, Plato or Aristotle did not know any subject/object
> distinction. Socrates definition was TRUTH ...not separate from belief,
> but different from OPINION (that the Sophists kept
> manipulating) but note that Pirsig feels the need for strengthening it
> by his: "That what is independent of ...etc." which is what we define as
> OBJECTIVE.
>
> Paul:
> By "belief" I meant what you mean by "opinion." I should have said
> *mere* belief. I don't think Pirsig is adding anything that Plato failed
> to mention. What you are describing is Pirsig's summary of the birth of
> subjective and objective in the epistemological sense.
>
> Bo said:
> Plato's permanence were IDEAS, only with Aristotle did something
> resembling S/O (form/substance) emerge.
>
> Paul:
> And here you are talking about how Aristotle invented subjective and
> objective in the metaphysical sense.
>
> Bo said:
> The kernel of all this is: It's the MOQ's interpretation of the past we
> talk about, and my assertion is that everything Pirsig writes points to
> a S/O definition of intellect. How Socrates, Plato and Aristotle defined
> their own struggle is almost irrelevant, Socrates did NOT (in his own
> words) place truth higher than good.
>
> Paul:
> Socrates didn't write anything down so we don't know what he said "in
> his own words." Plato, however, did place truth higher than good, both
> in his dialogues and in the "MOQ interpretation."
>
> "In order to win the battle for Truth in which areté is subordinate,
> against his enemies who would teach areté in which truth is subordinate,
> Plato must first resolve the internal conflict among the
> Truth-believers." [ZMM p.388]
>
> "Plato's second synthesis is the incorporation of the Sophists' areté
> into this dichotomy of Ideas and Appearance. He gives it the position of
> highest honor, subordinate only to Truth itself and the method by which
> Truth is arrived at, the dialectic. But in his attempt to unite the Good
> and the True by making the Good the highest Idea of all, Plato is
> nevertheless usurping areté's place with dialectically determined
> truth." [ZMM p.388]
>
> Bo said:
> Truth was his highest good.
>
> Paul:
> No, good was his highest Idea.
>
> > 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:
> Will you never understand? As a static level 'subjective' and
> 'objective' lose their metaphysical "in-themselves" quality they had in
> SOM and becomes the static value of such a distinction.
>
> Paul:
> It is you that makes it difficult to understand. In the past you have
> said that intellect is SOM then it was subject-object logic then
> subjective/objective knowledge and now it is impartiality. Seven years
> and counting Bo, is it the misunderstanding of all of us?
>
> Look at what you have written here:
>
> "Yes impartial, that's it. In ZMM Pirsig writes (in describing the
> emergence of SOM): "...But now as the result of the growing IMPARTIALITY
> of the Greeks to the world around them ...etc."
>
> So S/O is just impartiality, an approach to knowledge, but then
>
> "this is the way the the S/O distinction must be understood in the MOQ;
> the value of an objective reality versus opinion."
>
> Now it's about objective reality again, a metaphysical claim!
>
> Paul previously said:
> > 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:
> About "one from a possible many" (many what?) you have to spoon-feed me.
>
>
> Paul:
> Axioms, "self evident truths."
>
> "Poincaré concluded that the axioms of geometry are conventions, our
> choice among all possible conventions is guided by experimental facts,
> but it remains free and is limited only by the necessity of avoiding all
> contradiction. Thus it is that the postulates can remain rigorously true
> even though the experimental laws that have determined their adoption
> are only approximative. The axioms of geometry, in other words, are
> merely disguised definitions." [ZMM p.270]
>
> Regards
>
> Paul
>
> P.S. As an aside, I'm currently writing a report on Information Quality
> for a company in the UK, nowhere does a sharp subject/object distinction
> or the search for immortal principles come into the writing of the
> report yet it is clearly not just a social activity. A manipulation of
> abstract symbols to convey (hopefully) coherent ideas describes what I'm
> doing perfectly. What level would BoMOQ put my report writing in?
>
>
>
>
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