Elephant wrote in the MD:
I will accept your claim that an ever-present event is paradoxical. My
point would be that the paradox arises from it being a contradiction in
terms. 'Event' is (or so I thought) a word invented to convey the
numerically distinct and the discrete. But of course that's a kind of
authoritarianism about language, I mean on my part, isn't it? After all,
we
can use words just as we please, can't we? If by 'event' you want to mean
the ever present and continuous, well that's just fine - so long as we get
to discover (as we now have) that this is what you mean.
But be warned, productive though it can be, that your individualism in your
philosophical vocabulary is a risky thing in two ways: (1) it hampers
understanding (it certainly confused the hell out of me!), and (2) it tends
to lead to repercussions in your vocabulary elsewhere, ie now you will have
to talk about "numerically discrete events" to accurately describe what
everyone else just calls "events"
The point Elephant brings up on the other discussion board is the same
problem I have with the way Pirsig has used the word "morality". He seems
to be re-defining it from its common usage. "Morality" seems to be one of
those words which has such a strong meaning that re-defining it to mean
something else can be very difficult to do. My Webster's dictionary defines
morality several ways; the primary definition is "moral quality or
character, rightness or wrongness, as of an action." The second definition
is "the character of being in accord with the principles or standards of
right conduct; right conduct; sometimes, specific, such as virtue in sexual
conduct." When Pirsig uses the word Morality as equaling Quality, I feel he
is committing the same errors noted above - it doesn't make sense in the way
we find the word in common usage. If he means to re-define morality, I
don't believe he's done a very good job. If all he means by morality IS
Quality, then why bother using the word at all; Quality works fine.
marty j
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:30 BST