From: Glenn Bradford (gmbradford19@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Oct 23 2004 - 02:06:51 BST
To DMB except one paragraph for Matt,
1. It teaches that philosophy must begin with
universal doubt; whereas scholasticism had never
questioned fundamentals. (Aye)
dmb says:
I disagree. It seems to me that "universal doubt" is
an extraordinaryly radical kind of skepticism and so I
think Gorians and the Sophists represent an inaccurate
comparison at best. Further, As Pierce puts it, the
Cartesian assertion is that philosophy MUST BEGIN with
this radical skepticism. Pirsig doesn't make that
assertion and indeed does NOT begin his MOQ with
"universal doubt".
OK. I agree with your point about MUST BEGIN. But if
we step back and understand the sentence as a whole as
you suggest, then the main point of it is the contrast
between Cartesian and scholasticism in the ways of
belief - that in order to make new progress in
philosophy, Cartesianism insists that we doubt even
our most cherished fundamental assumptions. I think
Pirsig agrees with this attitude in spades, as his
contrarian drive led him to the radical conclusion
that subjects and objects are not the primary stuff of
reality. Your point about intellect not being "born
without parents" drifts away from the thrust of this
sentence.
Matt, you stress the same point as DMB with, "I think
the difference was that Cartesian scepticism is of a
particularly methodical kind", and I agree, but
see above. Your claim that, "I don't think anybody has
been a Cartesian sceptic except Descartes" could be
agreeable to me but then if this kind of scepticism
doesn't apply to Pirsig then it equally doesn't apply
to all the people who go along with SOM. If, as you
say, the important influence of Descartes for us is
not his methods but "the problematic he considered
important", or in other words his doubting attitude
toward knowledge, then I agree and I think this is the
thrust of 1).
b.Thought is essentially disembodied, and all thought
is conscious.(Aye,aye)
dmb says:
I'm with Matt here. The fact that Pirsig didn't
"mention" bodies or brains in the letter means nothing
at all.
I disagree. I think it is very telling that he
"forgets" the body and brain in his definition of a
human. It exposes his radical bias that all that
really exists is Dynamic Quality and that matter, even
dressed up as static patterns of quality, doesn't.
Indeed, he has to be reminded - corrected, that the
evolutionary aspect of his own philosophy says
something different.
f. Other ideas are internal representations of an
external reality.
(Aye)
dmb says:
But it seems pretty clear that were talking about the
SUBJECT's "internal representations" of an "external"
OBJECT. Of course Pirsig disagrees with it. This is
one of his largest targets and he hits it from many
angles. But most explicitly, he says that the abstract
symbols that are manipulated in the intellect are even
tied to experience, let alone an external reality.
Did you mean to say "abstract symbols that are
manipulated in the intellect are NOT even tied to
experience, let alone an external reality"? If so,
where does he say this? How can this be if the MOQ is
supposed to be in agreement with empiricism, and even
more striking, if it is supposed to be in agreement
with radical empiricism?
dmb says:
He insists that the test of truth for our intellectual
constructs does NOT depend on correspondece to the
objective world. This is what he wants to REPLACE.
From LILA, page 356...
"If objects are the ultimeate reality then there's
only one true intellectual construction of things:
that which corresponds to the objective world. But if
truth is defined as a high-quality set of intellectual
value patterns, then insantity can be defined as just
a low-quality set...and you get a whole different
picture of it."
OK, so the insane base some of their ideas on
low-quality internal representations based on their
own internal reality or a perverted external reality,
an example of which is the doll that appears to Lila
as a living baby. In the throws of this Lila uses the
toilet and eats the cocktail hot dogs and downs the
stiff drink which leads Pirsig to declare, "She's
wasn't *that* catatonic." (emphasis his) Is Pirsig
trying to say here that her grip on external reality
isn't *that* broken - that she does form valid
internal representations of external reality when she
isn't so, uh, ill?
Glenn
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