[MD] subject / object logic

[david buchanan]

Ron Kulp said:
I've been emersing myself in Bodvar's work on the SOL concept and I have to 
say I'm with him. ...To percieve and understand any part of reality is to 
percieve it as subject and object. Even our sensual recognition is based in 
symbol comprehension. we are emersed in languge but also much deeper than 
imagined, language is an out growth of comprehension, language communicates 
this understanding.  I believe Subject Object perception is base awareness 
for all living organisms, I believe instinct is built on it.

dmb says:
Above all, the thing that keeps me from going along with Bodvar on this idea 
is that it somehow puts the MOQ over and above all other intellectual 
systems, as if it were unique in offering an alternative to the assumptions 
of SOM. But now I'm pretty well convinced that Pirsig has plenty of company 
in the philosophical world. Most recently, I learned that rejecting SOM is 
one of the central features of classical Pragmatism. I was afraid that 
William James was the only one, but apparently the desire to find 
alternatives to SOM was something they all had in common. Last semester I 
discovered that European thinkers like Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and 
others were working on alternatives. I'd guess that all the process 
philosophers reject SOM as well. Its not hard to see why a person would 
think that SOM is built right into us, but this is just the power of 
language and culture which gives us "common sense". And common sense is just 
the mythology that still works, that people still believe in without 
question. But we can trace the history of ideas and see that this view was 
invented at a certain point in time. (We can't say it happened at 8:45am on 
a Tuesday, but you know what I mean.) In the case of SOM, many point their 
fingers at Descrates or at the Brit Empiricists. Pirsig and Heidegger take 
it way back to Aristotle and Plato. There are many way to trace its 
development but the point is simply that these assumptions are not inherent 
in the intellect. The origins and limits of that worldview have been widely 
explored with the intellect. Saying that intellect and SOM are the same is 
like saying religion and christianity are the same or that science is 
identical to Newtonian physics. In each case, the equation denies the fact 
that alternatives are already in circulation. These kinds of equations would 
unforgivably narrow the concepts of intellect, religion and science.

Ron said:
I think  ...Bo then brings up the question shouldn't there be another 
category within the intellectual level perhaps a subject object intellectual 
and a Quality intellectual (for lack of any proper descriptive term) a 
transcendent intellectual level one in which the awareness of the subject 
object perception is taken into account when intellectualizing.

dmb says:
Developmental psychologist would certainly agree that there are higher 
stages in cognitive function, that basic rationality is not the end of the 
road when it comes to intellectual development. And it seems to me that one 
would have to achieved a certain level to even begin to analyze and compare 
metaphysical systems, but it seems to me that the difference between SOM and 
the MOQ can be seen most plainly in their content. I mean, the MOQ isn't a 
deeper, more profound version of SOM. The kind of mind that can grapple with 
philosophical issues can grapple with Pirsig's ideas just as well. I'd 
certainly agree that there is a mystical element in the MOQ and that 
mysticism can't be fully appreciated through intellect alone (what can, 
really?), but even that is presented in a philosophical form. Besides, 
pragmatism is an option for those who get spooked by mysticism. Pirsig is 
certainly one of them and they've been bashing SOM since the 1870s.

Thanks.

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