Mark, Jonathan, Bodvar and all.
The words "abstract" and "concrete" in terms of reality caught my eye
inasmuch as I'm about half way through " The Writings of Willam James, A
Comprehensive Edition" edited by John J MeDemott and he uses the same
terms. For those who have not read James extensively I highly recommend
this collection because it arranges the work as it evolved over his
life. As you are well aware Pirsig makes these claims:
"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called [radical ]
empiricism. It claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from
the senses or by thinking about what the senses provide." pg. 113
"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of
twentieth-century American philosophy [William James]. It is a form of
pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the test of the true is the
good. It adds that this good is not a social code or some
intellectualized Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience."
pg. 419
William James coined the term "radical empiricism" and latter expanded C
Pierce's earlier work which became known as "pragmatism." James was a
thoughful contributer, articulate spokeman and ardent defender of
"pragmatism". This collection contains 19 essays on "radical empiricism"
totaling over 150 pages of detailed groundwork and argumentation. In "A
World of Pure Experiece" he describes "radical" empiricism thusly:
" To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions
any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any
element that is directly experienced. For such a philosophy , the
relations that connect experiences must themselves be experienced
relations, and any kind of relation experienced must be accounted as
'real' as anything else in the system. Elements may indeed be
redistributed, the original placing of things getting corrected, but a
real place must be found for every kind of thing experienced, whether
term of relation, in the final philosophic arrangement."
Later in the section on the pragmatic method in the essay "The Present
Dilemma in Philosophy" James slices philosophy into two basic camps
based on their view of reality. The Rationalistic (going on the
'principles' 'abstract') camp and the Empiricist ( going by 'facts'
'concrete" 'experience') camp. So when Bo and Jonathan exchanged:
Bo
<<Abstract in contrast to concrete is arch-SOMish and by making
<<that the opening move, the scene was rigged.>>>
Jonathan
>Bodvar, I agree that the abstract vs. concrete thing is arch-materialism.
>However, materialism assumes a bedrock of absolute "material" reality.
>In MoQ, everything can be considered an abstraction of something else
>(e.g. the relationship between the levels). Had I left this unstated,
>your charge of scene-rigging would have more substance. However, I
>explicitly stated that ALL patterns can be considered metaphors.
At first blush would seem that Jonathan leans towards the rationalist
camp while Bo leans toward other, and given Jonathan background in
science this bias might be so. But I'm also pretty sure that in general
they both agree with Pirsig on these three statements:
"Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual
abstractions." Lila-pp 64
" Dynamic Quality is a stream of quality events going on for ever and
ever, always the cutting edge of the present." SODV pp 12-13
"Static Quality is the class of stable or accepted values, patterns,
laws, customs, and theories that societies have formalized and that
change little over time. Lila-pp 58 "
Putting aside "writing a metaphysics is a degenerate activity",
"abstraction," or "de-straction" for the time being [that introduces
"beliefs" & "faith" which James also deals with succinctly but only in
several multipage essays], I'm sure you both would agree that Static
Quality is "abstract". The bug-a-boo comes, IMO, with Dynamic Quality.
Is it "concrete" reality? And if it is where does that leave Quality?
Returning to James, he subdivides "pure experience" [Q] into "percepts"
[DQ] and "concepts" [SQ] and the relationships between them. According
to James,"pure experience" is "concrete reality", percepts
are"perception(s) of reality" and concepts are 'abstract" theories, or
patterns of values describing or talking about that reality. Further
James maintains that the "relationship[s]" between the percepts and
concepts are give and take, they influence each other in various and
many ways. The closest that Pirsig comes to saying something similar is:
"The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of
quality is that although Dynamic Quality is constant, these static
patterns are different for everyone because each person has a different
static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static
patterns influence his final judgement. That is why their is some
uniformity among individual value judgements but not complete
uniformity." SODV pp 12-13
The key word here is "constant". What does he mean? James' "continous
flux" and Pirsig's " stream of quality events going on for ever and
ever" seem similar enough call them both "Dynamic Quality". So
"constant" might best be translated as an "on going", " continous flux",
of events as opposed to "constant" equaling "absolute" or "unchanging"
or more importantly "unchangable."
Does the MoQ posit you or I can influence or change dynamic events?
It's just not clear.
If "Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to
intellectual abstractions." and Dynamic Quality is something else, not"
direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual
abstractions," -Then what are its qualities? And can you influence it?
In James radical empiricism you can. I'm pretty sure in my reality, I
can too. Even if I can't, from a pragmatic perspective holding on to
that belief is good, true, and therefore a part of my reality.
3WD
PS- Metaphors are static qualities that may lead to dynamic actions.
"I'll let you be in my dreams, if I can be in yours" Bob Dylan
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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