[MD] Argumentation: Social/Intellectual

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

>From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] Argumentation: Social/Intellectual
>Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 10:23:55 -0500
>
>Hey Dan,
>
>Dan said:
>Could you please offer for discussion a couple examples where Robert Pirsig 
>seems to suggest the thinking of ideas as disconnected from the person.
>
>Matt:
>There are several things in compound.  One is Pirsig's definition of the 
>intellectual level in his letter to Paul:
>
>"Like so many words, 'intellectual' has different meanings that are 
>confused. The first confusion is between the social title, 'Intellectual,' 
>and the intellectual level itself.
>..
>Another subtler confusion exists between the word, 'intellect,' that can 
>mean thought about anything and the word, 'intellectual,' where abstract 
>thought itself is of primary importance.
>...
>When getting into a definition of the intellectual level much clarity can 
>be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower levels. Just as every 
>biological pattern is also inorganic, but not all inorganic patterns are 
>biological; and just as every social level is also biological, although not 
>all biological patterns are social; so every intellectual pattern is social 
>although not all social patterns are intellectual. Handshaking, ballroom 
>dancing, raising one's right hand to take an oath, tipping one's hat to the 
>ladies, saying "Gesundheit !" after a sneeze-there are trillions of social 
>customs that have no intellectual component. Intellectuality occurs when 
>these customs as well as biological and inorganic patterns are designated 
>with a sign that stands for them and these signs are manipulated 
>independently of the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be 
>defined very loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. 
>Grammar, logic and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign 
>manipulation."
>
>When Pirsig includes grammar as part of the rules of sign manipulation, I 
>think that is exactly the place where the distinction between social and 
>intellectual breaksdown.  Only Cartesians like Chomsky think that there is 
>a universal grammar that stands apart from communities that employ 
>language.

Hi Matt

Thank you for your response.

>From what I gather, you seem to be saying that there are universal rules of 
logic and mathematics but no universal rules of grammar. However, rules of 
grammar do not appear to be limited in scope to any one language or even any 
group of languages. In fact, I'm having some difficulty imagining any 
language existing without rules of grammar so I'm unsure what you're getting 
at.

I would have to go back and re-read that cat Chomsky to be sure, but I seem 
to remember him referencing language as a cognitive system with both surface 
structure and deep structure; while "logical form" is crucial to surface 
structure (in certain languages), there is no right (correct) "logical form" 
pertaining to deep structure. Perhaps this is what you mean when you say: 
"universal grammar...stands apart from...language"?


>And look at the way he distinguishes "thought" from "abstract thought".  
>What could he be suggesting?

I assume he is suggesting a difference between "stream of consciousness" 
thinking that plays very loose and free, and a more specialized thinking 
process that entails a rigid set of value patterns already in place, like 
academics, science, language, etc.

>I see what Pirsig is suggesting in part, but I think there is only a 
>difference in degree between handshaking and "Gesundheit!" and logic and 
>math, not a discrete difference where logic and math go off on their own 
>merry way.

I get the impression that Mr. Pirsig is pointing out how we assign symbolic 
values to specific patterns and call it: experience. Intellectually, we 
break down experience into an ideas about the world and how we relate. 
Socially, we're bound inside an invisible web of social patterns of which, 
for the most part, we're completely unaware. Each experience we have is 
filtered through this web of social values - handshaking, ballroom dancing, 
saying Gesundheit, these are social patterns so deeply ingrained we do not 
think about them, we just do it. When we name these actions however, we 
intellectualize.

This seems pretty self-evident, right? If not, please explain.

>
>_Where_ they go would be a good question.  Some of the evidence, I think, 
>is suggestive for thinking Pirsig has in the back of his head some 
>difference between truth and justification (as I outlined in my post to 
>Ian).  You have to connect the dots, but I'm thinking of this:
>
>"The alternative to 'The Metaphysics of Quality says,' would be 'I, Robert 
>Pirsig, says,' and that repeated many times sounds worse to me. I don't 
>understand this objection to a complete metaphysical system that someone 
>has worked out. It seems to imply that some kind of confusion is 
>preferable. It also seems to be an objection to the rhetorical style of the 
>Metaphysics of Quality rather than a discovery of any falsehood in it, and 
>in philosophy rhetorical styles are supposed to be irrelevant to the 
>truth." (Baggini interview transcript)
>
>I was very surprised to see this.

I'm not. I'm sorry, but if a person asks a silly question they shouldn't be 
surprised when they receive a silly answer. I don't understand Baggini's 
objection either. I didn't ask him, but I understood implicitly that Mr. 
Pirsig was simply practicing humility when he replied 'The Metaphysics of 
Quality says,' and I am surprised (and disappointed) that everyone doesn't 
see that.

>I again see what Pirsig is getting at, but his argument seems kinda' funny 
>for those who've read ZMM.  Rhetorical style/Truth.  This should remind us 
>of the end of ZMM when Pirsig pits the rhetoric of the Sophists against the 
>dialectic of Plato.  What was Plato doing?  He was making the Good 
>subservient to the Truth--everything subservient to dialectic (which 
>elsewhere in ZMM, you'll recall, he links with logic).  Opposed to that 
>were the rhetoricians.  If we look at the S/O Dilemma of Ch. 19 of ZMM, 
>we'll see Pirsig offer "three classical logical refutations" and "some 
>illogical, 'rhetorical' ones".  The rhetorical options are designed for 
>particular audiences--throw sand in the bull's eyes, sing the bull to 
>sleep, refuse to enter the arena.  The dialectical ones are not--they 
>simply deal with the options presented in the dilemma, rather than 
>considering the terrain you're on.  Audience/Isolation.
>
>At the end of ZMM, however, as we all know, Pirsig says that dialectic came 
>out of rhetoric.  This has always suggested to me that dialectic is rooted 
>in rhetoric, that dialectical options are particular kinds of rhetorical 
>ones (recall Pirsig's squabble with Aristotle: rhetoric is not a branch of 
>dialectic, rather dialectic is a branch of rhetoric).  But this all seems 
>to me to be reversed radically by Pirsig's riposte in the Baggini 
>interview, though it makes sense and can be seen to be implicit in Pirsig's 
>distinction between social and intellectual.

I disagree. It appears (to me) that Mr. Pirsig is being (more than) just a 
bit sarcastic in his comment that "in philosophy rhetorical styles are 
suppose to be irrelevant to the truth."

>Rhetoric, in the broad scale Pirsig uses the term in ZMM, is not irrelevant 
>to truth--it is the first step towards making truth possible.  Symbols are 
>not independantly manipulable from a community of manipulators because the 
>_rules_ of manipulation are instantiated by that community.

Yes that goes without saying. Mr. Pirsig says no such thing though. He says 
that the definition of intellect (if one insists on defining intellect) can 
be loosely described as manipulation of symbols independently of the 
patterns they stand for. This isn't to say that the symbols are independent 
of the community of manipulators (whatever that means) however.

>
>Taken by themselves, the riposte and what Pirsig says on behalf of the 
>definition can be seen to make innocuous sense.  But taken together, I 
>think, a pattern begins to emerge, one that sings a different philosophical 
>song then the one ZMM sang, though reading backwards, the tune of ZMM 
>itself can begin to change.

I don't see the pattern yet. I'm not saying there is no pattern but it will 
take some doing to get me to see it, I suspect.

Thanks for your comments,

Dan