Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 17:14:43 +0100
Ant McWatt wrote:
Hi Anthony and the LS
To say "Quality is thge ethical principle of the
> good" is a tautology as "Quality" is a synonym of
> "good".
The key word here is "ethical" that's the one that adds the extra
meaning. Quality is good, what kind of good? Moral good...
1. Quality.
Quality is reality. Quality is the ethical principle of the good. Thus
reality is a moral order. Quality, like reality, is known to us as
awareness. As such, it is impossible to define.
You could say "Quality is reality" as
> Diana has done but this leaves the question of
> "reality" for whom (or what)?
Maybe so, but saying it's "immediate undivided experience" begs the
question of "experience" for whom or what, so it doesn't solve the
problem.
This is why I used the
> Pirsig`s quote that Quality is "the first slice of
> undivided experience"
Actually I've answered this before but maybe you missed it. You've taken
this quote out of context. Pirsig said that Quality is undivided
experience that's all, it's not a slice of anything - to say it's a
slice would imply that Quality is a subset of something else.
by trying to get away from a
> tautological definition and saying something
> further about Quality i.e. that it is immediate undivided
> experience BEFORE a formal intellectual definition which
> would be immoral according to the MOQ.
I would dispute that Quality is "immediate". Dynamic Quality is
immediate but not static. There already seems to be quite a bit of
confusion about the difference between Dynamic Quality and Quality as a
whole. As I said in another post I think it's because Pirsig's concept
of Quality is different in ZMM and Lila. The Quality of ZMM is the
Dynamic Quality of Lila. The Quality of Lila includes the concept of
static quality.
You could say that Quality is experience. But I prefer reality because
it's the word that philosophers generally use when they are talking
about, well, reality. A metaphysics is a theory of reality. Pirsig's
definition of metaphysics is "that part of philosophy which deals with
the nature and structure of reality"
And don't forget one of my favourite quotes:
"You're going to make ten-thousand opponents and zero friends because
the moment you open your mouth to say one thing about the nature of
reality you automatically have a whole set of enemies who've already
said reality is something else"
Diana
-- post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:37 CEST