[MD] Another parallel

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Bo:
If the 4th level is SOM, then William James, John Dewey, John Stuhr, Sandra Rosenthal, Hegel, Heidegger and a whole host of other philosophers must have been using something other than intellectual patterns when they criticized SOM as a philosophical problem.  On what basis can one offer a critique of SOM, if not an intellectual basis?

Bo replied:The said philosophers may well have realized problems with the subject/object dualism, but does any of these use the term SOM?

dmb says:

Since the term "SOM" refers to the subject object dualism, your objection is ridiculous. Pirsig complains about these metaphysical assumptions in several ways, including scientific objectivity, the metaphysics of substance, the mind/body dualism, dualistic reason. You seem to be claiming that our local MD shorthand for all that (SOM) has to appear in exactly that form or it doesn't count as an attack on SOM. Man, that's just way too picky.
Bo continued: 
I doubt it, because in that case they would have understood the possibility of a new - none S/O - metaphysics and none of these undertook that task. 

dmb says:
One doesn't have to use the word "metaphysics" to undertake that task. Again, you're being ridiculously picky. James preformed that task using other terms but which mean the same thing. His radical empiricism says that subject and objects are "secondary" and "concepts derived". That MEANS they are no longer seen as primary, that they are no longer considered the metaphysical ground of reality. 

Bo continued:
James spoke about the "undifferentiated ...etc" that may look like DQ, but then pitted this against mind (concepts) which isn't what Phaedrus of ZAMM did, he said SOM (mind/matter) was Quality's fallout ... and called it "intellect" .. for your information!

dmb says:

Well, "undifferentiated" comes from Northrop while James refers to this using the phrase "pure experience" or "the immediate flux of life". James says that subjects and objects are "derived" from this or that this "furnishes the material to our later reflection with it's conceptual categories". Pirsig says subject and objects "spring" from this. He also says it "follows from" this. These terms - spring, follows, derived - all mean the same thing as "Quality's fallout" as you put it. Same thing is true for "intellect" and "reflections" and "concepts" and "conceptual categories". Those terms all refer to the same basic idea. You are using language so stiffly and inflexibly that every one of your sentences is nonsense. 
I want to recommend that you watch the video of Mathias Girel at Harvard talking about the influence of William James on the European philosophers. As he explains it, James' radical empiricism was misunderstood until recently because "pure experience" was taken to mean "subjective experience". In fact, he says that misconception is now evaporating. That is apparently the same misconception you're suffering from. You'll find his talk here. http://www.hds.harvard.edu/jamesroyce2007/videos/panel1_girel.html It's a little less than 25 minutes long and he makes the claim I'm referring to about six and a half minutes from the start. You know, for your information!






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