From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Fri Feb 13 2004 - 14:34:53 GMT
Bo
Bo said:
On 9 Feb. as we were discussing whether Rhetorics were a social
level endeavour you cited Pirsig:
> "The identification of rta and aretê was enormously valuable,
> Phaedrus thought, because it provided a huge historical panorama in
> which the fundamental conflict between static and Dynamic Quality
> had been worked out....The resolution of this conflict in the
> Buddhist and Vedantist philosophies is one of the profound
> achievements of the human mind." [Lila p.347]
Paul:
We weren't discussing rhetoric here, I posted this quote because we were
discussing your claim that saying static and Dynamic Quality existed
before Pirsig was nonsense.
Paul previously said:
> Pirsig isn't saying that a "Quality era" to follow your
> "intellectual era" dawned in the seventies, he is suggesting that
> thousands of years ago, what he calls Quality, the Sophists called
> arête, the Hindus called rta, the Taoists called Tao, the Buddha
> called nothingness....
Bo said:
This I found having little to do with our debate
Paul:
As above. You said that it is nonsense to speak of the existence of
Quality or of people referring to Quality before the MOQ, I was saying
that Quality=Tao=Nothingness=Absolute, and they are all referent terms
for something that has always been there and people have always talked
and written about. If you don't see this, I have no idea how you can
understand what Pirsig is writing about.
Bo said:
All in all Im' not sure how it relates to the MOQ at all where the
static levels are supposed to cover everything. Here Pirsig speaks of
the dynamic/static relationship in general ..and yet about a historical
epoch and its people. What levels are these things played out at?
Paul:
The social and intellectual levels.
Bo said:
What I have come to believe is that Pirsig here reveals a Oriental
variety of the story he tells in ZMM
Paul:
Agreed, but with an important difference in outcome.
Bo said:
Look, Phaedrus identified his Quality with the Aretê he saw displayed by
the ancient Greeks. At that time he hadn't made the DQ/SQ slash, but
looking back, this Greek Mythos era must have been like the one
described in the Rta passage: One of gods upholding the MORAL order of
the universe. That's why he later - in LILA - includes the Rta in the
Quality=Aretê equation.
Paul:
Yes.
Bo said:
Do you see what I mean? The RT passage is Pirsig pointing to a similar
Indian-Hindu mythological past of gods etc.
Paul:
Completely agree.
Bo said:
Now, in ZMM it was Phaedrus' frustration over SOM that triggered his
Quality insight, thus the big question is: Was there - are there - an
Hindu "SOM" that could have caused Oriental Phaedrus to create a
Metaphysics of Rta?. In his letter Pirsig speaks of an Oriental
intellectual level arrived at at the Upanisadic times (1500-500 BC)
which is definitely later than the said Myth era.
Paul:
Here is where your SOLAQI interpretation forces you to go wrong.
Because, to you, the intellectual level = S/O, when Pirsig, in his
letter, says that, "the Oriental cultures developed an intellectual
level independently of the Greeks during the Upanishadic period of
India.." you are forced to look for an Oriental version of the search
for "objective truth." But this didn't happen the way it did with the
ancient Greeks.
Pirsig says that the brahmanic social rituals, which protected the
social moral order and provided "signposts" to Dynamic Quality, became
too static. But what Pirsig is also saying is that the intellectual
patterns emerging in the Orient did not lose this "understanding" of
Quality that was present in their social patterns. To repeat a quote
from last week, Pirsig notes that "...what made the Hindu experience so
profound was that this decay of Dynamic Quality into static quality was
not the end of the story. Following the period of the Brahmanas came the
Upanishadic period and the flowering of Indian philosophy. DYNAMIC
QUALITY REEMERGED WITHIN THE STATIC PATTERNS OF INDIAN THOUGHT." [Lila
p.438]
"Rta" became "dharma," a term central to Indian philosophy that
"includes both static and Dynamic Quality without contradiction." [Lila
p.440] The Sophists seem to have been doing the same thing with aretê
and rhetoric until Plato and co. usurped it with dialectic.
Bo said:
A last stab at our debate. Seen from the MOQ everything must fit the
level system and as I see it the Social era fits this Rta-Aretê-Quality
scheme perfectly.
Paul:
I think it's wider than that. Rta-aretê-Quality all refer to a static
(ritual, order) and a Dynamic (freedom, change) element of reality. I
think Pirsig believes that the ancient Greeks generally paid more
attention to the static manifestations of aretê - physical prowess,
social status, well composed arguments than to the Dynamic source.
"The meanings [of rt], grouped together, suggested something different
from his interpretation of aretê. They suggested "importance" but it was
an importance that was formal and social and procedural and
manufactured, almost an antonym to the Quality he was talking about. Rt
meant "quality" all right but the quality it meant was static, not
Dynamic." [Lila p.435]
The meaning of the word comes from a prehistoric time before intellect
and so is heavily linked to social quality, hence the translation into
"virtue." But words invented socially are not excluded from being used
intellectually and so it is not necessary to say that aretê is
restricted to being a "social era" term for Quality that still meant
social quality when it was later used by the Sophists to refer to
all-round excellence, including intellectual excellence. I think it is
more that the Greek conversion of "rt" into "aretê" seems to leave it
referring more to static quality than Dynamic Quality.
Your insistence on levels as "epochs" of "different realities" that
permanently leave behind the preceding level seems to be confusing you
here. Remember that all intellectual terms gain their meaning socially.
Just as all social interaction involves biological humans and all humans
are composed of inorganic chemicals.
Finally, Pirsig thinks the Orient, with their translation of "rt" into
"rta," preserved more carefully and thus paid more attention to the
original meaning of rt - the wider tension between static (ritual,
order) and Dynamic Quality (freedom, change) and that, as quoted above,
"The resolution of this conflict in the Buddhist and Vedantist
philosophies is one of the profound achievements of the human mind."
[Lila p.347]
Bo said:
On page 386 (Bodley Head) LILA says:
"The mythos is the social culture and THE RHETORIC which the culture
must invent before philosophy becomes possible." (my capitals)
Paul:
Yes, rhetoric is invented in social culture, initially for religious
purposes I believe. As above, intellectual patterns begin an end in
society and its language. I'm not disputing that. This doesn't mean that
all rhetoric is purely social though. You seem to have a narrow view of
rhetoric; even Aristotle saw it as a branch of practical science. Logic
is a type of rhetoric.
Bo said:
....and a little further down the page:
"The Mythos over Logos thesis agrees with the MOQ's assertion that
intellectual patterns are built up out of social patterns."
Paul:
Yes, mythos over logos means that intellectual patterns begin an end in
society and its stories. What's your point?
Bo said:
And as Intellect follows Society "philosophy" means Intellect here.
Paul:
Yes, philosophy is intellectual, and the (philo)Sophists were
philosophers:
"The pre-Socratic philosophers mentioned so far all sought to establish
a universal Immortal Principle in the external world they found around
them. Their common effort united them into a group that may be called
Cosmologists. They all agreed that such a principle existed but their
disagreements as to what it was seemed irresolvable....
The resolution of the arguments of the Cosmologists came from a new
direction entirely, from a group Phædrus seemed to feel were early
humanists. They were teachers, but what they sought to teach was not
principles, but beliefs of men. Their object was not any single absolute
truth, but the improvement of men. All principles, all truths, are
relative, they said. "Man is the measure of all things." These were the
famous teachers of "wisdom," the Sophists of ancient Greece." [ZMM
p371-372]
The Sophists resolved philosophical arguments of the Cosmologists, and
they used rhetoric, intellectually.
Bo said:
I have driven you from one stand to the next
Paul:
You are your biggest fan.
Bo said:
...but the more battles I win the more adherers you seem to gain.
Paul:
Maybe, as they don't see this as a "war," that's simply because they
agree with some of my arguments. Besides, you haven't won any "battles,"
you just ignore the ones you know you have lost and raise
interpretational ambiguities in Pirsig's writing to keep yourself afloat
even after he has denied the primary conclusion of your interpretation.
"The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual formulation but some
kind of other level is not clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that
I know of that leads to this conclusion." [Robert Pirsig Sept 2003]
Bo said:
That's OK, now that you have Matthew (the Fallen Priest) with you I am
sure to be on the right side. ;-)
Paul:
Although you say it in jest, this ad hominem mentality of yours shows up
again and again. I think it is better if Matt's or anyone else's
arguments stand or fall by their own merit and not be judged by the name
on the post. Also, I don't care for the "recruitment campaign" approach
to this forum that you seem to have adopted e.g. where you have
applauded people simply for disagreeing with me and voiced despair for
those "adhering" to my views. Frankly, I find it a bit messianic and
mildly delusional - and at the very least, low quality.
Paul
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