Martin Striz (striz1@MARSHALL.EDU)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 15:23:48 +0100
Mark,
When you used the word "faith" you were met with the same
sort of resignation the word "catechism" was met with. Old,
stale words that people don't want to associate with what
Bodvar calls "the theory of the next millenium." Using
"presupposition" would have been just as accurate and
probably a more acceptable term. Presuppositions are those
assumptions we make before we rationalize, they are the
foundations of our thinking. We can't begin to reason
without them. For example, and I try to point this out
whenever I can, Ayn Rand espouses a philosophy called
Objectivism in which she says reason is man's only absolute.
She builds an entire ethical code by reasoning. What she
doesn't realize is that she has already presupposed
ontological materialism and epistemological realism and
didn't rationalize her ethical system until afterwords. If
you drill an Objectivist on the rationality behind their
materialism and realism, you're bound to draw blank stares.
So the MOQ is similar to this. Mike Hardie wants a syllogism
to prove Quality and the MOQ. He wants the rationality. But
as Pirsig points out, it's a presupposition (taken on faith,
as you called it). You can use polar coordinates or
rectangular coordinates, and neither one is more rationally
"right" than another. This is what I'm having a hard time
getting him to accept. But I'm working on it. If I can
break down a great dialectician like him, it's a great
accomplishment. :-)
So I understand what you meant by faith.
Many truths to you,
Martin
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