From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 29 2004 - 06:24:47 BST
Hey Sam, Matt, Glenn and all,
I've been really busy this month but I just wanted to get a few brief words
in before the discussion ends....
Sam asked:
Is 'subject-object metaphysics' just another word for Cartesianism? If not,
is there another description of it that might be recognised by the academic
community?
then added...
From the first google website enquiry on Cartesianism: "The central idea of
Cartesianism is that the mind is separate from the body and that the mind
can be better and more fully understood than the body. One's essential
identity is one's mind and the interior processes of the mind have more
reality than the physical processes of the body. It follows from this that
what you think (subjectivity) is more important than anything outside you in
the physical world (objectivity); from this would be developed the
Enlightenment concept of the subject."
Matt answered:
.. I would want to take "modern philosophy" to mean the desire to do
epistemology, the thought that the skeptic needs to be answered rather than
bypassed. I would want to take "Cartesianism" in the wide sense to be
synonymous with modern philosophy, or in a restricted sense to be some form
of the thesis that certainty proceeds from the mind (this would extend
"rationalism" to include Descartes to Kant to Chomsky). In these general
terms, SOM in the wide, Greek-as-target sense is synonymous with modern
philosophy, though I think its ambiguous as to whether Pirsig is modern or
post-modern then (I think there is evidence for both). On the other hand,
SOM in its more restricted, logical-positivist-as-target sense is not
synonymous with the specific sense of Cartesianism because the logical
positivist (and therefore SOM) is already post-Cartesian (though I wouldn't
be surprised if there remained a few Cartesian remenants in Pirsig).
R
I agree with Matt that the jury is still out on whether Pirsig is modern or
post-modern and I think that alternative interpretations of SOM must arise
depending on which category one places Pirsig in. If Pirsig is seen as
post-modern, then SOM is easily identified with the tradition(s) of
Modernism (and with Cartesianism to the extent that that term is synonymous
with Modernism). But if Pirsig himself is a part of the Modern tradition,
then SOM must be restricted, in one way or another, to some subset of the
modern tradition (possibly this one that "proceeds from the mind" as Matt
says).
Glenn answered:
Finding a useful, near-equivalent academic term for
SOM is fruitless because SOM is a hodgepodge of ideas
(idealism AND materialism, for example) without a
philosophical compass that no one could completely
agree with. SOM is not a metaphysics, it is a
rhetorical device.
R
Philosophical conversations are typically framed as arguments and the use of
rhetorical devices is certainly nothing new in argumentation. Pirsig's SOM
is virtually indistinguishable from the Sophist interlocutors of Plato's
Socratic dialogues. Plato's Sophists were caricatures of contemporary
figures making arguments tailored to allow Plato to exhibit his
philosophical ideas (by proxy, through the character of Socrates). SOM is
the interlocutor who supplies the answer Pirsig needs to steer the
conversation towards the issues he wants to talk about (through the
character of Phaedrus).
And like Pirsig's SOM encompasses disparate philosophical ideas (e.g.
idealism AND materialism), Plato's Sophists often advocated mutually
exclusive points of view (i.e. ethical relativism AND instruction in
virtue). But Plato wanted to answer both the Sophists who taught ethical
relativism and the ones who claimed to be teachers of virtue so he united
his philosophical enemies based on what he saw as their common factor,
namely, an emphasis on the study of rhetoric. Pirsig wanted to object to
both the idealists and the materialists (inter alia), so he united his
philosophical enemies based on what he saw as a common factor, namely, the
axiomatic acceptance of an initial metaphysical dichotomy between mind and
matter.
Now to a certain extent, using hodgepodges and abbreviations of broad and
diverse bodies of thought is going to be literarily unavoidable for authors
like Plato and Pirsig simply because of their respective styles. Plato
wrote in dialogue, Pirsig in narrative style. Neither style would have
benefited much from interminably protracted discussions of background
material (imagine if Pirsig had to fully explain each and every individual
philosophy he discusses, references, alludes to, implies. LILA would be as
long as the Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Both simply had to cut corners and
create "composites" (for lack of a better term) of vast elements of
philosophical tradition that set them up to make their respective points.
But let's be honest here, these guys aren't just philosophers, they're also
salesman (and I'm sure it's no coincidence that Pirsig and Plato are the
best selling authors in the history of philosophy). They're not just trying
to explain their ideas, they're trying to persuade you to believe them and
convince you to act upon them. I don't believe anyone was ever meant to
agree with the Sophists who appeared in the dialogues, and I don't think
anyone was ever meant to agree with SOM. On the contrary, I think people
were meant to disagree with them. Painting clear and flattering pictures of
all of the particular philosophies and philosophers grouped under the banner
of SOM is no more Pirsig's task than painting clear and flattering pictures
of the Sophists was Plato's. Plato was trying to destroy the Sophists, not
be their lawyer. He believed something important was on the line (Truth)
and wanted to get people on his side. Simply responding to the Sophists'
ideas wouldn't do. He wanted to blend the distinctions between the various
Sophists, homogenize their image as a bunch of immoral slicksters, and
generally make them look like a bunch of ignorant asses. He was fighting
against eons of tradition and used every means at his disposal to damage his
enemy. He wanted people to be horrified by the moral retardation he
depicted in the Sophists and recoil into his open rhetorical arms. Pirsig
sees himself as fighting against a similarly ingrained tradition and also
believes something important is on the line (Quality). Like Plato, he uses
every weapon in the orator's arsenal to attack his enemies and to win people
to his side (plug---Matt's newest essay to the forum opines Pirsig's use of
Populism to win converts).
So I think the question is whether we should condemn Pirsig and Plato for
their occasionally muddled and consistently unflattering portraits of their
respective enemies. Plato's reputation doesn't seem to have been severely
tarnished by his caricatures of the Sophists (no doubt because even
intellectual history is written by the victor). And on one hand, I
understand the urge to characterize these kinds of unflattering composites
as "strawmen" arguments designed only to be attacked. On the other hand,
just because a boxer practices on a punching bag that can't fight back doesn
't mean that his fists won't be devastating to a real opponent.
But to answer Sam's actual question about whether there is a description of
SOM that might be recognized by the academic community I would think that
Glenn is still right in saying that there probably isn't. Pirsig's thoughts
on the SOM are often hard to separate from his criticisms of professional
academia (i.e. the philosophologists, the Church of Reason, the Aristotelian
laughter, etc). He sees SOM as being deeply ingrained into the academic
community and so I'm inclined to think that we're no more likely to get
academia to accept the hodgepodge that is SOM (under any name) than we are
to get Gorgias to accept Plato's hodgepodge of the Sophists.
take care
rick
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