[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[skutvik at online.no]

Dave, All
 
July 31

I had said to Matt:

> Are there other thinkers who have coined the term SOM? Not that I know of.
> ... This about James, Dewey ..etc. also being aware of SOM - in this
> context  -is DMB's delusion too.
 
dmb quotes from chapter 20 of ZAMM:

> "He began to see that he had shifted away from his original stand. He was
> no longer talking about a metaphysical trinity but an absolute monism.
> Quality was the source and substance of everything.A whole new flood of
> philosophic associations came to mind. Hegel had talked like this, with
> his Absolute Mind. Absolute Mind was independent too, both of objectivity
> and subjectivity. However, Hegel said the Absolute Mind was the source of
> everything, but then excluded romantic experience from the "everything" it
> was the source of. Hegel's Absolute was completely classical, completely
> rational and completely orderly. Quality was not like that."

Ok, you are the scholar and don't shy away from a deep dive. 
ZAMM's Quality is MOQ's DQ ... do we agee that far? ... and the 
source of the static levels, but our existence is the static levels, from 
which we extrapolate the dynamic source, so a dualism it is, even if it 
is a Quality dualism. 

Now, Pirsig criticizing Hegel of having excluded "romantic 
experience" - i.e. the dynamic aspect -  from his metaphysics must 
stem from his own placing Quality above the MOQ (Quality having 
spawned DQ, so Hegel may have been more realistic here, however, 
what Hegel's metaphysics lacks is "non-absolute"  levels the last of 
which is SOM.   

DMB elaborates:
 
> Just in case the relevant part doesn't jump out at you, please notice what
> Pirsig says about Hegel's Absolute Mind. It was independent of objectivity
> and subjectivity. It just so happens that the portion of Hegel's work that
> attacks SOM was part of the assigned reading in a class I took in big,
> bad, scary academia. I mean, if you're the one who is willing to ignore a
> wide range of textual evidence to maintain your beliefs, then who is who
> is being  delusional and who isn't? Come on, Bo, be reasonable. 

Again, academical philosophy (intellect) is pleased with "attacks on 
the subject/object schism" (nobody knows any SOM however!) 
because that keeps it going, new books and PhDs on this enigma will 
sprout forth. Never has academical philosophy doubted the S/O 
schism, Kant is the the last word. As Ham said (to me)  

    "...the subject/object perspective has always been the 
    universal worldview. It is not now, nor has it ever been, 
    "metaphysics".   

and when poor Phaedrus forwarded his thesis of SOM being a stage 
in a greater system, the intellectual "immune system" struck and he 
was destroyed. I mean it was not academia that sent secret agents 
after him, it was Phaedrus own immune system. However his 
"sacrifice" allowed us to see a greater vista.  

Bodvar