[MD] Protagoras and "Measure"

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Bo --


Welcome to the new year!  It has been some time since we last spoke.

> Hi Ham
>
>> There is intrinsic truth in the "man-measure" statement of
>>  Protagoras that neither the law of the excluded middle
>>  nor the incompleteness of knowledge can refute.  I ran
>>  across a slightly different translation of that dictum in the
>> Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
>>
>> "Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are,
>> that [or 'how'] they are, and of things that are not, that
>> [or 'how'] they are not."
>
> Interesting, but I'm not very interested in more somish ruminating
> of this issue. Don't you understand that there was no "man" before
> the intellectual (S/O) level. There is no reference before the Greeks
> to "man" (as a subject) opposed to the possibility that "the measure"
> resides in some (objective) realm outside of "man". I know that this
> is the historical view that you love so much ( :-), but it IS how the
> MOQ must be approached.

"Interesting, but not interested."  Right away you pose a logical 
contradiction.

No, I do not understand why man had to wait for an intellectual level to 
come along and give him an identity. What could intellect have possibly been 
without a cognizant agent, and what was man before he became a "subject"? 
Your evolutionary concept defies anything we know about epistemology.

> Now, Pirsig allocated some Quality importance to Protagoras'
> sentence, but I guess (I have heard) everyone claimed "Aretê"
> in those days and as the Sophists were contemporaries of Plato
> they no longer promoted the Homeric (social) Aretê. (I guess
> they regarded it as some remote past) they were as "intellectual"
> (somists) as Plato & Co - they merely were its subjectivists.

The Philosophy Dictionary says: "Arete is ...identified with what enables a 
person to live well or successfully, although whether virtue is then just a 
means to successful life or is an essential part of the activity of living 
well becomes controversial.  According to Aristotle the various virtues 
consist in knowing how to strike a mean between opposing vices of excess and 
defect.  Greek thought also paves the way for the Christian ideal that the 
fullest development of arete for human beings consists in a self-sufficient 
life of contemplation and wisdom."

I'll settle for "value" or "virtue" as the meaning of Arete.  Neither has 
particular relevance to intellect.

> Perhaps this is what you hints to in this paragraph
>
>> This brings up the question of "subjective" vs. "objective" truth, a
>> distinction which Pirsigians probably won't acknowledge. However,
>> inasmuch as the experience of Quality is the foundation of the MoQ,
>> and it is Man, after all, who experiences, you folks should have no
>> problem with the proposition that Man is the _qualitative_ measure
>> of all things.  That leaves "objective truth" hanging in limbo.
>
> But your Pilate like "Indeed, just what is objective truth?" shows that
> you have slept through MOQ class.

The suggestion that your epistemology represents Truth is even more arrogant 
than Pilate's question.

I know you mean well, Bo.  You are dedicated and consistent in your 
presentation of the Intellectual Level.  But it confuses intellection (the 
rational interpretation of experience) with intelligence (the body of 
intellectual knowledge).  Intellect is a distinctly human capability, not an 
extracorporeal "level".  There was no intellect before man (unless some 
extra-terrestrial creature possessed it), and if all cognitive creatures 
ceased to exist there would be no intellect anywhere.

I may have slept through MoQ 102, but I challenge you and Mr. Pirsig to 
demonstrate how intellect can exist apart from cognitive awareness.  If they 
are one and the same, then where is awareness in the absence of a cognitive 
agent?  (I don't believe in animism, so please don't tell me that the 
universe itself is cognizant.)

Thanks for your interest.  Even if you're not (really), I would really be 
interested in your answer to my question.

Essentially yours,
Ham