Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Mon, 30 Mar 1998 08:25:23 +0100
Hi gang,
Bo, the term "epiphany" used to mean a revolation comes from James
Joyce. He grooved on the fact that what's taken to be the most important
revolation, the revealing of Christ, took place in an ordenary stabel in a
fairly insignificant town. The term is used to refer to a major (mystical
or psychologicaly transforming)revolation that comes out of a common
everyday experience or activity. (Zen has a comperable idea in *satori* --
sudden enlightenment, no meditation or philosophical study required;
you're just doing your laundry and BANG!) Joyce felt that all our daily
activities had a mystical/mythological significance.
I was looking at my statments yeasterday about truth and society
and decided that they were incomplete or badly presented. Here's another
go at it:
Keven more or less said that F=ma regardless of what you or I or
anyone and everyone might think or say about it. But, Keven, that's
something you *say*. More: it's something all of us say. Because it's
*reasonable* for us to do so. It would be unreasonable for us to go around
saying, "Look, if we all just agreed that F does not equal ma, or that
gravity did not exist, then the contenents will all suddenly fall off into
space." It would be *immoral* (socialy unacceptable) to go about teaching
that. Teaching that in a school would be an immoral activity.
But "F=ma regardless of what..." is not a fact! That's not proven
-- or even provable. Rather it is a (moral) assumption. It's what we have
to assume before we begin the activity of proving -- before we begin to
(scientifically) pursue The Truth.
"F=ma regardless of..." is not a fact; it is part of the right
thing to say (RTTS). Facts are secondary or tirciary to moral
codes/values, which (for us) take the primary form of social moraes --
correct patterns of behavier. *That* is what primarily exists! The
Platonic Heaven of absolute fact and Truth is dirivitive to/projected from
these moral codes and values. The values and there projected corect
picture of the world (CPOW) taken together are what I'm calling the
"ethical substance" -- that which is both ethical (RTTS) and substantial
(CPOW).
Now, the CPOW is a (mere) abstraction, an empty theory (or
encyclopedia of theories); it is only in itself. The RTTS is a praxos -- a
practical aplication, for itself. But neither the CPOW nor the RTTS are
what *really* exist. For whare we really dwell is in the thorougly
concrete realm of social interaction -- we live in the present (that is,
the present situation). This (experience) is real in and for itself.
Hegel's metaphysics begins w/ this idea: what *really* exists
exists in time. To ask how something exists is to ask how does it get
figured into time -- into the rhythm of activity. So if you go to Hegel
and ask him, "G.W., does Santa Clauss exist?" he'll say yes. And if you
ask, "well, how does Santa Clauss exist?" he'll say, "He exists as a
ritual entity -- the object of a ritual (placing gifts benieth the tree
and eating the cookies) -- much the same way the Holy Spirit exists w/
respect to the mass." "But," you protest, "isn't the Holy Spirit supposed
to be a trancendent entity -- something that was around "before" time
(whatever that means)?" "Look," says G.W., "atemporal things exist
abstractly. An abstract truth or entity is only an empty (that is,
unforfilled) potentiality; it exists in itself only. But the abstract (as
it is ever encountered) is always projected from the present situation
('Consider a perfect circle...') -- that is, it is *abstracted from* time.
So what really exists cannot be abstract; it must be concrete -- something
in time, something that has a history, something that moves (or LIVES)
from moment to moment."
Now in Pirsig-speak mode:
DQ exists only in itself -- it "exists" as a possibility, a
potentiality; it is defined as the unforfilled and thus it is always, ever
empty vacume. It's NOTHING! It doesn't *really* exist because it is
defined as the not-yet. Like the Tao it a space to move into or allong,
but it is not a destination, position, or even a place. It's the big
empty. (And the *Tao te Ching* argues at length that it is the emptyness
that makes the container or vessel [the limits] usefull.)
Noe the worst thing Pirsig does is use the word "static." I hate
that choice of word because it emplies the frozen -- the unchanging. He
should have said "preduring," "relativly long-lasting," or (better)
"concrete." Obviusly all these patterns are IN time as a rhythm and a flux
(that's what "pattern" is, right Peter?) They live!
Post-Aristotialian metaphysics is based on the Platonic model
(which is also the Christian model, for, as Nietszche said, "Christianity
is Platonism for the masses,") in which what really exists is taken to be
abstract and universal (be it the Forms, God, or the laws of physics). For
Aristotle, though, what really exists exists as a living thing --
something moving through time, following a pattern or rhythem, in spite of
what might kil it/interupt it. For Aristotle (and his best "modern"
spoksperson, old G.W. Hegel) THIS INCLUDES REASON! For the sophists,
Socrates, Aristotle and for Hegel, truth exists w/in the
dialogue/discorse/dialectic. For Plato (and Sir Issac Newton) truth
resides in the corespondance between the dialogue and the world outside it
(which we know is really just a [moral] projection from the discorse,
right?).
Whether we're "Platonic" or Aristotilian in our thinking colors
how we view the intellectual patterns, right? On the one hand they are a
set of timeless, atemporal laws and abstractions. On the other, they are a
form of life -- *social* life -- MORAL life. The first is
(pre-philosphical) *Rasonnieren* thinking; the latter is (philosphical)
*begreifende Denken* thinking.
Scientist, logicians and mathimaticians prove.
We ask, just what IS this activity of proving?
"Politics is the queen of the sciences."
-- Aristotle
*Nichamacean Ethics (Politics Part I)*
O-kay, now you may tell me how badly I've misunderstood Pirsig and
how miered I am in SOM. I believe that's the standered procedure around
here, now-days. ;-)
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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