[MD] Re MoQ and SOM differences

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB, Andrè, all

16 Oct.:

Andre asked:
> > (1) What is the essential difference between the MoQ and SOM thinking?

DMB: 
> Despite what Bo says, one can find many different ways to reject SOM
> within the mainstream academic world of philosophy. 

Rejecting the subject/object split may not be all new, even Ham Priday 
has done that, he calls it (the S/O) "differentiated beingness" and is 
Essence's creation, something that corresponds to Phaedrus of 
ZAMM's initial insight that pre-intellectual quality spawns intellectual 
quality (the latter a subject (becoming aware of) objects) Ham will 
surely find some fault with my presentation, but never mind.    

> If you go to the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, for example, and
> enter the term "truth" into their search engine you'll get a sense of
> the current debates. (plato.stanford.edu) The article at the top is
> titled simply "truth". That'll be good for a broad overview. Or, if you
> want to take a closer look at SOM itself just scroll further down the
> first page and you'll find an article titled "the correspondence theory
> of truth". That's SOM

It may be the S/O but SOM is Pirsig's thesis that the S/O arrived with 
the Greeks and developed into a conviction that existence is so 
divided from eternity to eternity. none goes on to suggest a new 
metaphysics.  

> where truth is a matter of correspondence between objective reality and
> the subjective understanding. The fact is, Western philosophers have
> been rejecting SOM for well over a hundred years. Hegel, who I hate
> with a white-hot passion and find pretty much unreadable, was doing
> this 200 years ago. 

As said rejecting the S/O may be old, I'd say that the empiricists were  
the first, Hegel and Priday are very like in this respect, but no one has 
rejected SOM it the Pirsigean (SOL) way of seeing it (SOM) as being a 
static stage taking over from a previous stage 

> My favorites are James and Dewey and they reject SOM and its very clear
> that they're doing so because they explicitly use the terms "subjects"
> and "objects". Also, I just read Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of
> Morals" (1887). The third section, "what is the meaning of ascetic
> ideals" is fun to read because he's kind of an angry poet and he makes
> a great case for perspectivalism, a case for the aesthetic over the
> ascetic, which is pretty damn MOQish. 

As said envisaging a reality prior to the S/O is a philosophical pastime, 
but Pirsig's (SOL) way of making the S/O split the topmost stage of a 
4-tiered static realm of another DQ/SQ split  is unique.
  
Compared to your levelheaded approach  I may sound like a difficult 
child, but "mainstream academy philosophy" says it. The moment the 
MOQ is seen as mainstream it's done for.

Andrè:
> > (2) how can we recognise in our own and other's arguments/ positions the
> > SOM thinking elements? Is there an "easy" way/ trick to this? How can we
> > help ourselves and others move towards MoQ 'reasoning'?

DMB: 
> I don't think there are any easy tricks. But it's not very difficult
> either. It just means we have to do some reading and thinking. One
> could try Rosenthal's anthology. It's called "Classical American
> Pragmatism" and consists of contemporary commentators or John Stuhr's
> anthology is good if you want to read the key texts of Dewey and James
> directly.

    "Philosophologists not only start with putting the cart before the 
    horse, they usually  forget the horse entirely. They say first you 
    should read what all the great philosophers of history have said 
    and then you should decide what you want to say". (LILA p 
    329) 

> There is no shortage of material on this stuff. These recommendations
> are just the most handy. These book have been among the assigned texts
> in my grad school experience so far and so these book are all sitting
> a few inches from my elbow.

(Sic)

Bodvar