[MD] The Greeks?

[skutvik at online.no]

Matt 

June 5 you wrote: (to Mary) 
 
> But, when you ask, "Does it matter to the MoQ whether the 
> Intellectual Level existed before or after Socrates?" I would 
> want to reserve the right to say, "It might."  When 
> philosophers become historical and start listing the times and 
> dates they think something momentous occurred, it can be 
> very illuminating to what, exactly, they think it is that 
> occurred.  

Agree.

> For example, if one were so inclined to say "the Intellectual Level
> had its first defender in Socrates, and codifier in Plato," then you'd
> have an interestingly controversial set of old antagonisms to think
> through: especially, Sophist vs. Plato.  And because of what Pirsig
> says about Plato and the Sophists, it gives you something to think
> about, about just what Pirsig is saying when he identifies the
> intellectual level as emerging in 5th century Greece in one book, but
> that Plato did something dangerous in the previous one.  It gives you
> something to work through, to tease apart just what Pirsig meant and
> what the consequences are of what he meant.  

Still agreement, especially about "Pirsig ....identifies the intellectual 
level as emerging in 5th century Greece in one book ..." LILA. By 
"...Plato did something dangerous in the previous one " you hint to the 
Sophist issue, but Socrates & Plato were the budding level's 
"objectivists" (cosmologists it says in ZAMM) and and the Sophists 
were its "subjectivists". I.e. the beginning of intellect's internal S/O 
controversy that has raged to this day.      

> Identifying the intellectual level with Socrates is often an old
> philosopher's trick to get other people to think that what they do (as
> footnotes to Plato) _is_ (rather than _was_) a culturally momentous
> task.  

What "old" philosophers have performed that trick?. The intellectual 
level or SOM  is indigenous to the MOQ. You possibly mean that The 
Greeks are seen a the midwives of rationality and that is correct. And 
that everything pertaining to Western Philosophy are footnotes to Plato 
which is also correct.

> Thinking through whether you agree with that, or with the Sophists who
> thought themselves handmaindens rather than the avant-garde (and in
> what sense with whomever's side you take), can be important.  But one
> can probably get the hang of the MoQ without thinking about it, just as
> one can get the hang of modern physics without tangling with Francis
> Bacon's fight with the Ancients. 

Er .... well ok!

> Given the scope of what Steve was talking about, would it be fair to
> say that you've just identified SOL with "language-ability"? Perhaps
> not, since you go on to imply that animals have SOL capabilities, but
> by that time you've gone beyond what I think Steve was willing to say.
>  Because, if you think that SOL is simply the power of
> "discrimination," I'm not sure why we need the fancy acronym, and
> especially the word "logic."  Are you just talking about the ability
> to distinguish this from that? 

Agree, Mary's use of the SOL leads into the wilderness. But again I 
was stuck by your identifying what happened in Greece - described as 
the emergence of SOM in ZAMM - with the intellectual level. After your 
vehement denial any such a context that I read from your "What is 
SOM" essay it's quite a welcome development. 

Bodvar