[MD] Value and the Individual

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo --

> I had begun on a reply to Ham, but see that there have
> arrived other "strands" to this thread that deserve comments
> for instance Magnus who passes a little lightly over the
> "Man the Measure" issue that played such a major role
> in the evolution of the Quality Idea in "Zen and the Art
>..." (ZAMM).
>
> In the said book Pirsig sided with the Sophists and saw
> Plato's hatred of them representing SOM's hatred of Quality.
> He emphasized that "Man" does not correspond to modern
> day subjectivism ...

I confess to having borrowed ZAMM from the library some time ago, and do not 
own a copy of it.  However, the notion that SOMists have a "hatred of 
Quality" seems a bit overblown to me.  Certainly the Sophists and 
Epicureans, who hold to the principle of "power over weakness" and enjoyment 
of the finer things in life, cannot be said to hate quality, whatever they 
might think of metaphysical reality.

>    Man is the measure of all things. Yes, that's what he is
>    saying about Quality. Man is not the source of all things,
>    as the subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the
>    passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists
>    and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the
>    world emerges as a relationship between man and his
>    experience. He is a participant in the creation of all
>    things. The measure of all things...it fits. And they taught
>    rhetoric...that fits.

If this is Pirsig speaking, I have no problem with what he's saying here. 
As you know, I'm a strong advocate of Protagoras' maxim, which probably 
defines man as well as any other philosophical description.  I also believe 
that Value creates the world through experience, which makes man the active 
agent of existential reality.  The fact that "they" (I assume he's referring 
to the Sophists) "taught rhetoric" is of no particular interest to me.

> The part about the Sophists is while Phaedrus was in Chicago
> shortly before his breakdown. He had relative recently conceived
> the Quality Idea and - we must assume - still stood with one foot
> in SOM and the other in a most tentative MOQ. Now, seen from
> SOM it's plain that humankind is the only species that 1) has
> language 2) is conscious, but by the same logic it's just as plain
> that it's language that has created the concept "man" and also
> that the world only exist for us - in our consciousness. SOM
> leaves us confounded, whatever concept we believe is basic, it
> splits along the S/O fault. It's this the MOQ sets out to resolve -
> and does - by leaving the S/O divide a mere static level (the
> intellectual) of it Dynamic/Static (Value) metaphysics.

We see everything "from SOM", Bo, inasmuch as it is the mode of human 
experience.  What you mean, I think, is that "from the S/O perspective" man 
is seen to have both consciousness and language.  (The language is 
incidental, since it can be argued that animals also communicate with each 
other.)

What I find absurd in your analysis is the assertion that "language has 
created the concept of man."  This is semiotic nonsense.  Do you mean to 
tell me that someone who never learned to speak would not know what a 'man' 
was?

That "SOM leaves us confounded" because "it splits along the S/O fault" is 
no impediment to ontological understanding, since existence is a dichotomy. 
Man himself is value/sensibility (although Pirsig fell short of recognizing 
it); thus we have self/other, mind/matter, being/nothing, good/evil, 
pleasure/pain, dynamic/static, and all the other contrarieties of which 
Value is the existential source.

I won't comment on dynamic and static as "levels", since I don't consider 
the levels hierarchy essential to ontology or philosophical understanding. 
As I said to Ron yesterday, I suspect that Pirsig contrived a multi-level 
hierarchy mainly to avoid
having to acknowledge a primary source.

> Wonder if Ham follows me this far?  If his Essentialism
> is a Metaphysics of Man (MOM)?

No, Bo.  While your acronym is cute, Essentialism is technically a 
cosmology--i.e., a reality concept--that focuses on man as the autonomous 
agent of Value in this dichotomy called existence.

I do want to understand you better, Bo, as I believe you have some important 
points to make about intellect (as the value of the S/O divide?) which I'd 
really like to comprehend epistemologically, rather than in 'levels' 
terminology.  Would you be willing to explain your concept (sans levels) for 
my edification?

Thanks, Bo.

Essentially yours,
Ham