From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Sun Apr 10 2005 - 00:49:04 BST
dmb:
What is Pirsig doing to Pragmatism here?
Mark 6-04-05:
The preceding Lila paragraphs provide the context:
What the Metaphysics of Quality adds to James' pragmatism and his radical
empiricism is the idea that the primal reality from which subjects and
objects spring is value. By doing so it seems to unite pragmatism and
radical empiricism into a single fabric. Value, the pragmatic test of
truth, is also the primary empirical experience. The Metaphysics of
Quality says pure experience is value. Experience which is not valued is
not experienced. The two are the same. This is where value fits. Value
is not at the tail-end of a series of superficial scientific deductions
that puts it somewhere in a mysterious undetermined location in the cortex
of the brain. Value is at the very front of the empirical procession.
In the past empiricists have tried to keep science free from values.
Values have been considered a pollution of the rational scientific process.
But the Metaphysics of Quality makes it clear that the pollution is from
threats to science by static lower levels of evolution: static biological
values such as the biological fear ('Biological fear' is an emotion - Mark)
that threatened Jenner's small pox experiment; static social values
such as the religious censorship that threatened Galileo with the rack.
(Lila. P. 372-3)
dmb:
When Pirsig denies that the "good" in his version of pragmatism is a social
code what is he denying exactly?
Mark 6-04-05:
The preceding Lila paragraphs provide the context:
The Metaphysics of Quality says that
science's empirical rejection of biological and social values is not only
rationally correct, it is also morally correct because the intellectual
patterns of science are of a higher evolutionary order than the old
biological and social patterns.
But the Metaphysics of Quality also says that Dynamic Quality-the
value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious
one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one-is
another matter altogether. Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than
static scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of science
to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church authorities to
suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an integral part of science.
It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself. (ibid 373)
Mark 6-04-05:
That the good is not wholly equated at the social or biological level is
derived from
introducing cosmological evolution:
Because it avoids the notions of subjects and objects, Pirsig advances the
argument that the MOQ can provide, to a certain extent, the rational
framework that
Popkin & Stroll consider pragmatism requires by instead, employing four
static value
codes (the inorganic-chaotic, biological-inorganic, social-biological and
intellectual-social)
that are graduated morally (from the inorganic to intellectual) via
cosmological evolution. Therefore, to return to the example of the Holocaust
with
the MOQ, it's apparent that the National Socialist party of Hitler's was a
social
institution at a higher level of evolution than the biological patterns it
was seeking to
destroy. However, Pirsig's system further indicates that these actions of
Hitler's
party were immoral because the destruction of biological patterns (i.e. of
six million
plus people) also entailed the destruction of their intellectual patterns
which take
absolute moral precedence over any social pattern (such as a political
party).
Moreover, the destruction of six million Jews reduced the overall
intellectual and
Dynamic value in the world.
The MOQ distinguishes 'what works' inorganically from 'what works'
biologically and 'what works' socially and 'what works' intellectually. It
shows
that these levels are often opposed and that this opposition can be the
basis of a
scientific description of morality. (Pirsig, 2000c)
In other words, the MOQ is a rational framework that avoids making moral
choices on personal whim or satisfaction. The system shows that there are
different
types of satisfaction and these types are not all of equal (Dynamic) value.
(McWatt Phd December 2004 P. 125-6)
dmb:
When Pirsig denies that the "good" in his version of pragmatism is
"some intellectualized Hegalian absolute" what is he denying
exactly?
Mark 6-04-05:
Hegelian Absolute is a postulated conclusion of a deductive process,
(theory) that is, it is 'intellectualized' or static.
The preceding Lila paragraphs provide a context:
'Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than static scientific truth...'
(Lila. P. 373)
dmb:
What is a "Hegalian absolute"?
Mark 6-04-05:
A static pattern of intellectual value.
dmb:
why is it better to replace 'a static pattern of intellectual value'
with "pure experience"?
Mark 6-04-06:
Dynamic value is an integral part of science.
It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself.
Anyway, all this certainly answered the question of whether the Metaphysics
of Quality was a foreign, cultish, deviant way of looking at things...
(ibid)
All the best,
Mark
dmb quoted:
...The MOQ is a continuation of the mainstream of 20th century American
philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the
test of the true is the good. It adds (THE MOQ ADDS!!!) that this good is
not a social code or some intellectualized Hegalian absolute. It is direct
everyday experience. Through this identification of pure value with pure
experience, the MOQ paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at
experience which can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional
empiricism has not been able to cope with.
(ibid)
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