Hey Jon,
JON:
But I think there is a pervasive, unconscious tendency to put the
thought/feeling interrelationship aside
and continue as if the two things are completely separate. I hope that Rick
isn't offended if I use his post as an example...
RICK:
No offence taken, but the quote you snipped wasn't supposed to divide
intellect/emotion... it was simply supposed to place them both "behind" the
Q-Event... in it's wake rather than in it's path... if you know what I'm
sayin...
JON:
> Probably this is a fair summary of Pirsig's literal words, but I find it
> problematic.
> Surely "Quality" doesn't flash by and stop in a single "event" that
> precedes the intellectual.
> If we accept that, then all Pirsig's talk about the "Classical" view of
> Quality is absolute nonsense.
> Rather, we should regard Quality as a PROCESS that starts in the
> preintellectual and then *continues* though *with* the intellectual. One
> starts with eVALUation of the primary preintellectual reality....
RICK:
This "evaluation" of the primary preintellectual reality is what I believe
Pirsig has isolated as the Q-event....
JON:
... and continues with evaluation of the intellectualized understanding of
that
> reality. It is ongoing. It encompasses both the Romantic and Classical
> viewpoints.Using the term "Q-event" contributes to a tendency to make a
temporal
> divorce between a (pre) emotional "preintellectual" phase and a rational
> "intellectual" phase. Rather, we might do better to talk about a
> "Q-Process" that starts with primary experience and encompasses all
> later intellectualization.
RICK:
I don't know about this.... Intellectualization always comes after the
"cutting edge of reality", first we experience and then we attach our
analogues of intellect/emotion. They can't be part of the Q-event because
the event is this "cutting edge" and intellect arises only in it's wake...
we could choose to call the whole thing a Q-process, but then we refering to
more than just the "preintellectual cutting edge of reality"... besides in
the diagram on pg. of ZMM Pirsig actually identifies Romantic Q with
preintellect....
JON:
>... I am thinking of *possible* answers. You are thinking of
> pejorative rationalization, intended from the outset to justify some
> particular viewpoint. I was using rationalizations in the plural, where
> one is initially aware of several possible viewpoints and considering
> how each can be justified. Of course, sometimes one "discovers" a new
> unexpected answer as a result of the rationalization process.
RICK:
Fair enough, I didn't catch the significance that plural....
JON:
> Perhaps Pirsig finds it easier to rationalize his opinions using his own
> MoQ. Rather self-serving, don't you think.
> I prefer to judge the MoQ more on its power to help us uncover new
> answers.
RICK:
I'm sure Pirsig thinks the MoQ uncovers new answers, but I personally am not
sure yet...
>
> JON:
> Rick, I know that don't intend to cause offence by your "baseless
> garbage" charge. However, in rejecting the charge, I note that your
> argument my answer MU to the "Science or Emotivism" question is similar
> to the answer Phaedrus received about the A-bomb, I don't see the
> parallel. Isn't this just "empty" rhetoric.
RICK:
First, thank you for not being offended by my poor choice of words... they
didn't seem so harsh at the time.
Second, I resent the idea that rhetoric is "empty" when it involkes emotive
argument. Given the context of our discussion and the points you made above
I find it
bizarre that you would label emotive argument as "empty."
Finally, the funny part about all this is that you ask what the parallel
between your answer and the "a-bomb" situation is, but you actually explain
this parallel far better than I did....
".... the question he asked and the answer he was given belonged to
different
> philosophical contexts."
Yes, that's what I meant. Your answer wasn't "baseless garbage", it just
belonged to a different philosophical context than my question and therefore
has no real value as answer. While the term "MU" may work well for the Zen
masters, it has no place in rational
discussion.
JON:
In the group, we discussed a very different question about whether the
> actual dropping of the A-bomb was moral or not. That discussion was very
> enlightening, with opposing viewpoints presented (principally from David
> B. and Ken Clark) with everyone claiming the support of MoQ reasoning.
> This is a good illustration of my point about alternative
> rationalizations.
RICK:
And it's a better illustration of my point that Pirsig's claims to "greater
precision" in moral reasoning are unsupported. >
Are we making progress yet???
Rick
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