[MD] Intellectual activity

[Stephen Hannon]

Hello all,

[Scott said]:
So, then, what are we doing when we are reading LILA? Well, what I would say
that Pirsig was doing in writing LILA is proposing *changes* to our
vocabulary. So in reading it, we are being asked if we go along with the
changes being made. He is proposing that we change the meaning of such words
as 'substance', 'cause', 'empirical', 'karma'. He is also creating new
symbols, notably, "Metaphysics of Quality", "Dynamic Quality" and "Static
Quality". So intellectual activity is not just the collection and
manipulation of symbols, it is also the creation and modification of
symbols. That is the difference between reading LILA and reading a romance
novel, and the difference between social use of language and intellectual
use of language. At the intellectual level we are engaged in modifying our
vocabularies, not just using them.

Bloom's Taxonomy, I think, provides an accurate description of this
phenomenon.  Starting with the most basic: Knowledge, Comprehension,
Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.  So when we are
reading LILA we are analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating.  When one
reads a romance novel, she is reading mainly for knowledge and
comprehension, or because the book is popular (popular being a social
term).

Does this work?

-Steve

On 5/3/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
>
> [Platt [in the On Taxation thread] said]
> I've noticed in this and posts by others that the term "intellectual"  is
> tossed
> around without definition. My memory is poor, but haven't we tried in the
> past
> to agree on a definition? Perhaps you can refresh my memory.
>
> [Arlo replied]
> There was a thread that attempted to define it. I didn't participate in that
> at
> the time. But I do argue that the term itself is problematic.
>
> Scott:
> I've changed the subject line for obvious reasons.
>
> Yes, this question has been discussed many times, so why not again :-). A
> first obvious point is that no one is just an intellectual. We are all
> intellectual, social, biological, and inorganic, so the question is what
> sort of activity counts as intellectual, and then an "intellectual person"
> is just one who does more of that activity than most people.
>
> Pirsig, of course, in LC (#25) said the following:
> "In LILA I never defined the intellectual level of the MOQ, since everyone
> who is up to reading LILA already knows what "intellectual" means. For
> purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the intellectual level is the same
> as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
> brain, that stand for patterns of experience."
>
> There are some problems with this statement. In the first place, "the same
> as mind" adds no precision whatever, in fact makes it less precise. Someone
> could say that feelings are mental. However, the last sentence clearly
> eliminates that. But there are problems with that last sentence as well, as
> has been discussed before, and as I will discuss below. Before getting to
> that, though, I think the first sentence provides a good starting point,
> though I would rephrase it as "anyone who is reading LILA is engaging in
> intellectual activity." So the question of "what is intellectual activity"
> becomes "what is one doing when reading LILA that one is not doing when
> reading, say, a romance novel?".
>
> Now the problem with the last sentence of Pirsig's quote is that it doesn't
> address this. That is, it is not clear if it is saying anything more than
> "intellectual activity is occurring whenever one uses language?" And since
> elsewhere Pirsig clearly holds that intellectual activity only emerged about
> 2500-3000 years ago, well after there was language, just equating intellect
> with use of language clearly doesn't work. (By the way, a pragmatist might
> object to that last clause "...that stand for patterns of experience", since
> it seems to be invoking a representational view of language. But that's
> another problem. Another side issue comes from the "created in the brain"
> phrase. To me that sounds like a commitment to the mind-brain identity
> hypothesis, which I find objectionable.)
>
> So, then, what are we doing when we are reading LILA? Well, what I would say
> that Pirsig was doing in writing LILA is proposing *changes* to our
> vocabulary. So in reading it, we are being asked if we go along with the
> changes being made. He is proposing that we change the meaning of such words
> as 'substance', 'cause', 'empirical', 'karma'. He is also creating new
> symbols, notably, "Metaphysics of Quality", "Dynamic Quality" and "Static
> Quality". So intellectual activity is not just the collection and
> manipulation of symbols, it is also the creation and modification of
> symbols. That is the difference between reading LILA and reading a romance
> novel, and the difference between social use of language and intellectual
> use of language. At the intellectual level we are engaged in modifying our
> vocabularies, not just using them.
>
> Further, I would say that this view of intellectual activity carries over
> from philosophy (as in LILA) to science and art. In science, what one is
> after is finding ways to account for certain classes of patterns of
> experience. And again, science doesn't just collect and manipulate existing
> symbols. It must create new ones -- indeed new systems of symbols. One then
> tests these new systems in experiments. In art, an artistic creation is also
> a symbolic creation, though here the "new" is more of an invitation to
> educate our senses -- to see/hear in new ways, rather than our language.
> Mathematics is a special case, since in mathematics there is nothing beyond
> the mathematics for it to be tested against, though in all these activities
> (philosophy, science, art, and mathematics) the real test of the changes is
> whether others adopt them.
>
> I think I'll stop here. I should clarify that "intellectual activity" is not
> just the creative acts, but also the testing acts. That is, in writing LILA,
> Pirsig is being creative, and in reading it we are testing it, but in a
> sense that is re-creating it.
>
> - Scott
>
>
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