[MD] grmbl

[Andre Broersen]

Marsha to Andre:

I doubt that rhetoric and dialectic exclude rationality.  Where is your
reference for the inclusion of rhetoric and dialectic in the Intellectual
Level replacing rational analysis?  You may be correct, but I don't
remember such an explanation.

Andre:
I am not replacing anything!! (it is Bodvar who tries to do this) I am simply suggesting that dialectics and rhetoric, as a mode of enquiry belong at the intellectual level. I mean, if these two modes are not about a skilled manipulating symbols I don't know what is.

Mr. Pirsig described rhetoric as as form of 'mystic art' (ZMM p 145, my e-copy) and suggested on p185 that 'philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is undefinable...has been with us since the beginning of history'.

Thing is that at the intellectual level one can entertain two or three 
or dozens opposing or contradictory or affirming ways to handle the 
knife. I don't particularly care what you call them, be it logic, 
rational, irrational... whatever. The greater freedom which this level 
affords us, in comparison to the other levels is, I think indicative of 
the wonderful ways we have learned to adapt, interpret and deal with 
whatever we experience.