[MD] Argumentation: Social/Intellectual

[Matt Kundert]

Gene,

Matt said:
However, part of the point of this line of argument is to blur the 
distinction between the social and intellectual level.  I have many doubts 
about that distinction, but for my current purposes I would like to 
highlight one: the separation between _who_ we give authority to and _why_ 
we give authority to them.  The social level is where we as social beings 
exist and the intellectual level is where our arguments exist.  But the 
reason we confer authority to people in intellectual discourse is _because_ 
they’ve had good arguments.  These good arguments aren’t disembodied from 
the person, as is possibly suggested by Pirsig’s description of the 
intellectual level as “independently manipulable symbols.” (See “Letter to 
Paul Turner”)  These arguments _are_ the person.  We don’t _have_ static 
patterns, we _are_ static patterns.  But if arguments aren’t easily 
distinguishable from the person, how can we confer authority to the argument 
and not the person?  What is authority in intellectual discourse if not 
trust in the argument’s power and the argumentative skill of the person 
propounding it?

Gene said:
I think there is definite confusion between a good idea and the person who 
had the idea. People with Good ideas, tend to be respected. And I'm sure a 
lot of people try to have Good ideas so they can be respected. Perhaps this 
is an example of Intellectual Patterns of Value using social patterns of 
value as a means to importance and dominance of those social values. Maybe 
once ideas have become important enough, they'll disconnect from Society, 
and ideas will be discusses as entities of themselves, not creations of an 
individual.

Matt:
I was wondering how you would answer my suggestion that thinking of ideas as 
disconnected from the person is, contrary to what Pirsig seems to suggest 
sometimes, anti-Pirsigian.  I've forwarded an argument attempting to 
dismantle the underpinning of what allows you to say the above, which I take 
to be typical of a bad social/intellectual distinction.  How would you 
respond to the argument?

I should also point out that the dream of Enlightenment philosophy was 
exactly the extension of the Platonic dream of ideas being entities 
themselves.  I would warn away from such things, particularly because if 
ideas are "not creations of an individual" I wonder what they are.

Matt

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