[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Ron --

You have thrown a lot at me in your two posts of 2/1, including lengthy 
Wikipedia teatises on Nihilism which are too subjective to be worth 
critiquing here.  Besides, nihilism is not the issue that divides us.

For the sake of expedience, I'll restrict my comments to statements that 
you've made which strike me as disingenuous or just plain wrong.

> I do not subscribe to a difference between mind and
> matter, substance and attribute, fact and value, therefore
> their relation is superfluous.

Then you had better change your "subscription".  Unless you live in some 
other dimension than the rest of us, your mind and its conscious awareness 
are not "matter" or material substance.  Refusal to acknowledge the 
fundamental mind/matter distinction is like refusing to acknowledge that 
you're a human being.  Cartesian duality may currently be out of favor for 
elitists, but to deny what is self-evident is the most foolish of 
hypocrisies.  The same can be said for claiming  there is no difference 
between a substance and an attribute or a fact and a value.

> How old is that dictionary Ham?  Call it what you like,
> because it is valuistic, it is nihilism.  Unless your essentialism
> promotes a universal truth, morality and reality.

This one I don't understand.  If nihilism is the rejection of value, how can 
a valuistic philosophy be nihilistic?  And how does one "promote a universal 
truth, morality, and reality" when the only truth we know about morality and 
reality is relative?

> RMP's context is one of developing one's own convictions
> not accept his.

I have developed my own convictions, and expressed them in the same context. 
Yet, RMP's followers criticize me because they are not Pirsig's convictions. 
How does your analysis of Pirsig's "context" justify that attitude?

> Please explain how that metaphor is a "catch 22",
> I was not insulted as much as astounded at the level
> of garbage it put forth, That metaphor clearly states
> that hedging your bets and falling back on fear, is a
> better stratagem to guide existence than developing
> one's own beliefs, that a lilly livered cop-out. come on.

The Catch-22 (or paradox) of existence is that evidence for a primary source 
is equally weighted on either side of belief or non-belief.  Neither side 
can come up with unequivocal proof for his conviction.  While you vent your 
anguish by calling it "garbage" and "a lilly-livered copout", Essentialism 
offers a reasonable explanation for this paradox (see below)*.

[Ham, previously]:
> I'm sorry the "nihilist" label offends you, Ron, but I see little
> "conviction' in the mindset you've revealed, much less "belief",
> and you've given me no evidence to persuade me otherwise.

[Ron, offended by this "insult"]:
> See, now it's this sort of belittling tripe that's insulting.
> Give me some bit of evidence your essentialism isn't nihlistic.

Aside from the fact that I posit Value as the ground of experiential 
existence, foster the spiritual development of man, and firmly believe in a 
transcendent source, my answer to your rhetorical question should qualify as 
additional evidence.

> If it is valuistic in base, it is not founded in universal moral,
> ethical and objective truth, now is it? It is subjective in nature
> focusing on the individual value expereince which is hardly
> universal unless you are asserting a collectivism.
> correct Ham?

No, Ron -- and this is where you reveal complete ignorance of my philosophy.
Again, there is no "universal moral or ethical truth", and the only 
objective truth is "what works" pragmatically as a relative principle.  This 
is an anthropocentric universe.  Since all knowledge is derived from 
experience, Truth is relative to the individual, and moral systems are 
developed by man to achieve peaceful cohabitation in a collective society.

*Man is driven by his value-sensibility and is the "decision-maker" of his 
universe.  To insure that his value judgments (preferences) are freely 
exercised, he is created as an autonomous agent.  Were man to have access to 
absolute knowledge (Truth) it would make judgment meaningless and violate 
his freedom.  Man's role in existence is to provide an unbiased extrinsic 
perspective of Essential Value.  He achieves this through experience by 
differentiating "pre-intellectual" value into the actualized world of things 
and events in process.  In a metaphysical sense, however, the essence of 
being-aware is the value of uncreated Absolute Essence.  If you view this 
philosophy as Nihilism, something is seriously wrong with your thinking.

(Always appreciate an opportunity to clarify my position.)

--Ham