[MD] SOM

[Ron Kulp]

Subject-object based metaphysics

>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Subject-Object Based Metaphysics is terminology used by the author
Robert M. Pirsig 

to the historically dominant form of metaphysics in Western philosophy.
Pirsig claims 

that the use of subjects and objects as separate distinct entities stems
from the 

founding of modern intellectual discourse on the logic of "plus or
minus". Things either 

are or aren't, and any further findings are considered non-empirical.
The subjective side 

of thought is considered entirely non-empirical. Pirsig also notes that
The subject object 

metaphysics have distanced subjects from objects in places where they
are inexorably linked.

 

 

 

 Nietzsche's Table of Values

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in Thus Spoke Zarathustra said that a
table of values hangs 

above every great people. In the section "On a Thousand and One Goals"
Nietzsche claims the 

Jewish people were "mighty and eternal" because the Jews honoured their
father and mother "to 

the very roots of their soul"[2] Nietzsche asserts that what made a
people great was not the 

content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a
community strives to 

articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those
values come to pass."

[3] The willing is more essential than the intrinsic worth of the goal
itself, according to Nietzsche

[4] There are "a thousand and one goals," says Zarathustra, one no more
worthy than the next. 

This idea became a core premise in modern social science. Max Weber and
Martin Heidegger absorbed 

it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical endeavor, as
well as their political understanding.

 

 

 The Fact-Value Problem

The problem of the unexamined acceptance of the fact-value distinction
is two-fold. Firstly, the 

idea itself is not self-sufficient. The concept required great genius to
arise, and there were 

particular political and historical conditions which contributed to its
emergence. Therefore, 

its truth is of question. Secondly, the blind use of the concept
distorts the very tradition 

whence it came. Thus the origin of 'facts' and 'values', or philosophy,
is obscured from view. 

An example is found when Plato is examined by modern philosophers.

 

In a contemporary study by the American philosophy Professor Daryl Rice,
it is claimed that Plato 

did not understand the fact-value distinction. To make his point he
declares that water has two 

hydrogen atoms for every one oxygen atom. Rice calls this a fact. He
says a chemistry professor 

who stated that this was unjust would be making a 'value' statement, an
absurd normative argument 

since the 'fact' is a fact[5] But is it? Moreover, Rice says that Plato
thought values were facts, 

and cites Plato's strict censorship of music and poetry in The Republic.

 

Yet upon closer inspection, one might argue the supposed 'fact' of H2O
is a product of a 'value'; 

the scientific or philosophical 'value' that originated in Ancient
Greece before Socrates and was 

made possible for human beings through the life and work of Thales,
Socrates, Plato et al. The 'value' 

-- to look at water in a scientific way, to discover its molecular
composition as opposed to drinking 

it or using it as an aspect of a religious ritual such as baptism -- is
the philosophic 'value'. In fact, 

one might argue Plato understood the fact-value distinction and rejected
it[6]. Plato tried to define 

philosophy as a search for truth, a search for what is; this 'value'
precedes any 'fact'[7]

 

 

Ron:

Plato's Idea, the value of what is, is an attempt to establish a basic
understanding of certainty

Through the axiom of excluded middles by working with assumed absolutes
as a matter

Of convenience.   This immediately gives rise to the process event trap
that things are fixed

And do not change. It also gives rise to another form of
anthropomorphism the theory of forms. 

 

I say it has become cultural because it influences how we perceive,
describe and understand the reality

We experience every day.

 

Although I think rather highly of the MoQ I find it rather un realistic
to expect it to REPLACE

Thousands of years of the cultural formation of religion, mathematics,
and scientific discovery that we utilize

And which have become such an integral part of our modern lives. 

It does not propose an alternative mathematics of any kind nor an
alternate workable formal logic.

(I have suggested Topos but no one seems to see it's relevance to MoQ)

I am interested to hear some suggestions as to just how we are to
REPLACE

SOM with MoQ  without totally abandoning almost every aspect of our
culture.

 

Do any of you honestly believe this is feasible without the loss of
millions of lives? 

 

I'm curious. I concede that anything is possible however it would seem
rather improbable.

 

Thoughts?