[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Hi Steve --



> Quality as a monism is an intellectual postulate. You can accept it and 
> see where it takes you, or you can leave it be. This forum is concerned 
> with seeing where this intellectual postulate takes us. If you are 
> unwilling to accept it for the sake of argument and at least try to 
> understand what Pirsig means by it then your posts will be of little 
> interest to most people here.
>
> In other words, if your arguments took the form "if we accept this 
> postulate it leads to these problems" then I would be interested in the 
> discussion. But yours always take the form "I don't want to accept this 
> postulate because that is just not how I understand the term value." You 
> are playing a different game than the other members of this forum. There 
> is just nothing to say to someone who is not interested in Pirsig's 
> Quality.

My interest in the MoQ is longstanding, largely because my philosophy also 
has a valuistic premise.  I think I do understand what Pirsig means by 
Quality, and have made a sincere attempt to accept it as a metaphysical 
"monism".  Unfortunately, for reasons that I've cited, the Quality thesis 
falls short of this distinction.  This is not just because the author has 
distorted the meaning of "value", or that the terms "dynamic" and "static" 
are contraposed.  My criticism is not about semantics.  Rather, it concerns 
the flawed epistemology that an aesthetic sensibility such as "beauty", 
"importance", "quality" or "value" can stand independently as the ultimate 
reality.

While this criticism may be outside of your personal ballpark, I believe it 
has a legitimate place in a forum dedicated to a "free-ranging discussion" 
of the problems and applications of RMP's Metaphysics of Quality.  Your 
complaint is duly noted, Steve.  If I have overstepped my bounds, I shall of 
course abide by the house rules.

Regards,
Ham