[MD] subject / object logic

[david buchanan]

Dan said to Ron:
I think that's what the MOQ brings to the table: a way of ordering reality 
that doesn't begin by separating subject from object but rather uniting them 
under one umbrella.

Ron replied:
I'm not arguing this intellectual assertion, I argue that subject object 
distinction also lies in immediate experience and not just an intellection. 
By your rationale, if one observes an object never experienced before, that 
object can not exist.

dmb says:
I understand your frustration with this idea. It defies common sense. The 
notion that the world of things (objects) is already out there waiting for 
us (subjects) to experience it is so thoroughly ingrained in our language 
and culture that contradicting it seems insane or even (gasp) stupid. And I 
realize that it seems absurd to say that a thing can't exist unless it is 
first experienced, but that's actually what the MOQ says. The MOQ says that 
experience brings "things" into existence. Instead of the usual view, it 
says that "things" are given reality by virtue of the distinctions we 
discover in experience. If memory serves Pirsig says something like, if a 
thing has no value (negative or positive) then it is not distinquished from 
anything else and so does not exist. We create the notion of external 
objects because it works. It works cause we duck when sharp "objects" are 
flying at us, for example. In that sense, nobody is suggesting we abandon 
common sense distinctions in ordinary life. But this sort of naive realism 
has limits and leads to all sorts of trouble. The metaphysical assumptions 
of SOM are intimately tied up with our scientific and technological society. 
In many ways it has worked all too well so that we find ourselves living in 
a degraded enviroment, an artificial, machine-like world, alienation from 
our lives and from ourselves - and quite alot of this has to do with the 
over-emphasis on the so-called objective truths and realities and, at the 
same time, a denegration of so-called subjective experience such as we might 
enjoy in the arts or personal relations, etc.

Ron asked:
...whatever happened to radical empiricism.

dmb says:
I'm predicting a big come-back. But seriously, if I lost track and failed to 
answer don't take it personally. I'm just busy with other things.

DMB posted Emerson quotes:
He says, "The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul." The 
sort of creative genius, he says, "is the sound estate of every man, In its 
essence it is progressive. ...springing spontaneous from the mind's own 
sense of good and fair." (Need we ask anyone, Phaedrus?) "In the right state 
he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state ...a mere thinker, or still 
worse, the parrot of other men's thinking." (Yes, i see the irony in quoting 
that.) Books, he says, "are for nothing but to inspire". "Undoubtedly there 
is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must 
not be subdued by his instruments."

dmb says to Ron:
The main distinction here, even though Emerson doesn't us the terms, is 
between static and dynamic. Notice what Emerson says about this "active 
soul"; that everybody has it, it is spontaneous, can't be found in books or 
other instruments of the intellect. This spontaneous sense of what's good 
and fair is our pre-intellectual experience, the primary empirical reality. 
"You" know it is good to get off that "hot stove" and do so even before you 
have time to think of the experience in terms of self and stove.  (We don't 
normally think of such a move as "moral" because its so "thoughtless", but 
when we think of morality of a basic sense of what's good and bad instead of 
just that set of cultural expectations then we can easily see how getting 
off the stove was "good". Its certainly better than burning your ass, 
breaking the stove or starting a fire. It was certainly NOT a good time to 
settle in and read a book about asses or stoves or fires. And I think that 
guys like Emerson and Pirsig are saying that we have to learn to trust our 
spontaneous nature. Even in activities that seems to also require structure, 
practice and precision - things like archery, motorcycling and sailing - we 
ought to trust that dynamic mode of perception. This sort of thing is 
legendary in the arts (including the martial arts) and writers are 
especially good at talking about this kind of thing but golfers will tell 
you too. Hell, Luke Skywalker showed everybody a version of this when he 
shut off the computers and nailed the Deathstar with one perfect shot. I 
know its corny, but everybody has that image already.

Among other things, Radical Empiricism says this kind of experience ought 
not be excluded from our account of reality. Such things are not dismissed 
or denegraded for being "just" subjective. If I understand Emerson, he 
thinks it is the most valuable thing in the world. And if I understand 
Pirsig, this is what the mystics, zen monks and artist all seek to 
cultivate. That's pretty big stuff. A metaphysics that's dumb and/or blind 
to all that definately has some problems. So, its quite alright to duck when 
shit is coming at you. That's not the problem. SOM works well enough to 
split atoms and go to the moon. When it comes to handling that level of 
reality, SOM really rocks. Its not that its wrong so much as it is limited. 
It has a way of putting all the emphasis on those lower levels of reality 
and/or reducing human things to those levels.

I'm told the romantics were among the first to complain, starting after the 
American and French revolutions, when it became apparent that the ideals of 
the enlightenment and the scientific revolution weren't necessarily going to 
lead to a rational utopia. In fact, the terms "subject-object metaphysics" 
and well as "static" and "dynamic" theories of truth came up in a class on 
19th century philosophy. And we're just getting warmed up, talking about a 
guy who died in 1805 (Schiller). James's Radical Empiricism was still a 
hundred years in the future. (I'm told Emerson and Schiller both influence 
James in a big way.) My point here is simply that SOM has many critics and 
it seems that doubting it is a fairly normal thing for a philosopher or even 
a philosophologist to do.

Thanks.
dmb

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