[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB and all moqtalk

On 17 Dec. you wrote:

> Bo, Mati, Paul and all MOQers:

> Bo said:
> ...The Sophist's aretê was not static social quality. The pure social
> era would have agreed with Protagoras'  "man the measure of all
> things". If we look to a present-day social value culture - the Muslim
> one for instance - that of being "man-made" is the absolute evil. No,
> the Sophists were intellectuals all right, but represented the
> subjective side of SOM, while Socrates represented the objective -
> truth - side.

You hopefully noticed the missing negation, that the social era 
would NOT have agreed with Protagoras.   

> dmb says:
> I'm not following you with respect to Protagoras and Muslims.

How can you not follow? According to Pirsig the religious attitude 
is the mot notorious social pattern and "man the measure" is the 
very antithesis to this attitude. 

> But I
> certainly object to the idea that the Sophists "represent the
> subjective side of SOM". That stikes me as quite incorrect and seems
> to miss of of ZAMM's central points. I mean, philosophically speaking,
> the climax of the book occurs when he can identify his own Quality
> (DQ) with the Good of the Sophists over Plato's "encapsulated" version
> (sq), which was taken from them. 

Let the Sophist issue rest, the main thing is that Socrates-Plato 
represents a loss of Quality - the dreaded SOM where quality is 
subjective. Now superimpose the MOQ on this and we see the 
said development as the intellectual level's emergence (if you 
disagree with that you must take on Paul) and that Socrates-Plato 
represents SOM's objective "truth" part and the Sophists the 
subjective part. I think this stands up for scrutiny.             

> "And really, the Quality he was
> talking about WASN'T classic Quality OR romantic Quality." (ZAMM
> P.212) " Their Good and his Quality (DQ) "was not an Idea at all. The
> Good was not a FORM of reality. It was reality itself, ever changing,
> ultimately unknowable in any kind of fixed rigid way." (ZAMM p.342) 

The notion of a historical time representing  DQ or "reality itself" 
is of course untenable, but all levels have a dynamic 
"unassimilable" aspect and further examination of ZMM in a 
MOQ backsight reveals that Aretê is the dynamic aspect of the 
social level. It might have been found at any level, but because 
the MOQ is something that transcends intellect, social value 
becomes its natural ally (the known phenomenon). 

A general confrontation with the source of all problems, namely 
the notion of DQ "outside" the MOQ is overdue. This illusion 
stems from box-diagrams where it looks like the top box - in this 
case  DQ - remains behind after the DQ/SQ split is done. It does 
not! It's DQ which is split that way. Even more illusory is that of 
the paper presenting anything.

This cleared up - and still in a MOQ backsight - we see that the 
Romantic Quality of ZMM's "moq" represents the dynamic aspect 
and (with the Aretê=Social in mind) also is associated with the 
social level. The Classic part conversely represents the static 
aspect and consequently the intellectual level, or SOM as is 
shown in the diagram.     

> My
> point? The Sophists were mystics, not intellectuals or romantics. Or
> at least it is this mystical understanding of the Good that makes them
> so central in ZAMM. "From Phaedrus' viewpoint, James's epistemology
> might be understood as a reversal of Plato's synthesis and a return to
> the Sophists' perspective." Guidebook page 171

I had no idea that the Sophists represented mysticism. I will 
return to the rest of your post later.

Your old acquaintance 

Bo