[MD] The difference between a Monet and a finger painting

[Ham Priday]

Dear Steve --


> I don't have any problem generally with common sense,
> but neither philosophy nor science is in the business of
> confirming it. *Einstein said that common sense is just a
> bundle of prejudices**acquired before the age of
> eighteen.  We need those predjudices to get by, but
> we also do well to question our predjudices.*

I don't view common sense as "predjudicial".  I view it as the universal 
precepts we all intellectualize from experience.  Like scientific knowledge, 
common sense is open to falsification should experience change.  In most 
instances, however, the axioms of common sense reflect the "logic of 
empirical reality" rather than one's predjudices.

[Ham, quoting J. L. Mackie]:
> "For value to exist at all there must be a valuator - an agent - to impose
> a standard on what is otherwise an indifferent universe.  Things are good 
> to
> agents, for the sake of attaining some goal; they are not simply good in
> themselves.  Put differently, reality comes before morality.  Prior to all
> good and evil, there must be a world of things that can become good, evil,
> or neither.  In that regard, value is conditional: it predicates on the
> existence of agents who have some standard for the material state of
> affairs."

[Steve]:
> This is not an argument in support of your position. This quote just takes
> for granted what you wish to prove. You have yet to explain how
> epistemology does not support Pirsig's postulate that Value precedes
> subjectivity and objectivity. All you've said is, "it's common sense."

Ok. Try this Values definition from 
www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Epistemology_Values.html :

"Values are that which one acts to gain or keep.  Living entities act to 
achieve various ends. They decide, by some standard of evaluation, which 
ends are wanted, and to what degree. The combination of an end to which one 
can act towards, and the wanting to accomplish those ends, is a value.

"Values are automated judgments about particular ends. Similar to emotions, 
they are originally derived through the use of reason.  They are derived 
from an initial judgment about the merits of particular ends to achieve some 
goal.  The automated response comes in the form of "wanting" something. 
Since it is based on a previous judgment, it can sometimes be stale or 
incorrect, just as an emotion is.

"Values are not desires.  A desire is an emotional longing for something. 
It differs from values in a couple ways.  First, the desire may not be 
achievable.  One may desire to grow wings and fly.  Values are concerned 
with goals one is able to pursue.  Only when a course of action is apparent 
can one value something."

Note that "Value" presupposes "one" (agent or observer), "living entities", 
and a "reasoning" or "wanting" subject.  In no case is value defined as 
independent or exclusive of man.  Of course this doesn't "prove" anything 
other than substantiating the epistemological understanding of Value.  But, 
by the same token, where is your "proof" that Quality exists independently 
of man?

> You think Pirsig has it all backwards, but is no big incite. That is
> precisely the point. Pirsig says, suppose we've had it all upside
> down all along. Pirsig is *deliberately* turning everything on its head.

[Ham]:
> Playing 'let's suppose' may be amusing as a child's game, but it doesn't
> shed any light on experiential values.  Similarly, I could change my
> perspective by imagining a flying cow or a talking lizard (Geico?), but
> this won't change the way the world works or how knowledge is
> acquired.  There is simply no epistemological support for unexperienced
> or unrealizable value.  Asking me to "try it out" is like asking me to
> believe in the Truth Fairy.

[Steve]:
> This is a very closed-minded comment. Was it a child's game
> when Copernicus said, let's suppose the sun rather than the earth
> is the center of the universe? Was it a child's game when Einstein
> said, let's suppose that gravity is not a force but rather the
> experience of curved space?

It would have been a child's game if Copernicus and Einstein had only their 
imaginations
to play on.  Fortunately they had acquired the astronomical knowledge and 
mathematical calculations necessary to empirically validate their theories.

[Ham]:
> Steve, while I can appreciate RMP as an accomplished writer
> and novelist, I don't regard metaphysics as an art form.
> Judging a philosopher by these criteria demeans Philosophy.
> It's not like trying on a shoe.  I hope you don't think I'm gullible
> enough to believe everything a gifted novelist sets in print.

[Steve]:
> So you have no appreciation for Pirsig as a philosopher?
> How do you regard metaphysics and philosophy if not as
> an art form?

Are logic, analysis, intellection, and deduction forms of "art"?  Philosophy 
has always been a dialectical inquiry into the fundamental truths 
(principles) of reality.  Hegel codified this inquiry as a methodology based 
on the stages of "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" according to the laws of 
dialectical materialism.  Metaphysics is a special case in that the 
hypotheses posited are not limited to material reality.  The only "art" 
involved in this intellectual discipline is expressing the concepts in 
comprehensible language.  Some writers are more "poetic" than others --  
especially those who call their philosophy "Metaphysics" while deploring the 
very idea of a transcendent reality.

Regards,
Ham