[MD] Pirsig, Socratic method and the koan

[X Acto]

9> Aristotle seems never to have understood what Socrates was doing, as Plato presents him, which shows most obviously in the difference between Socrates' robust conception of dialectic and the feeble and relatively trivial analogue of that as it appears in Aristotle. The root of their difference was in the logical wedge which Aristotle introduced by distinguishing epistêmê from technê. In Socratic-Platonic usage "epistêmê" expresses a craft conception of knowledge, and epistêmê and technê have the same logical grammar, whereas in Aristotle craft is relegated to an inferior status because it involves production. This makes it impossible for the virtues to be treated as crafts, and thus disconnects sophia from technê, too. Epistêmê is associated primarily with formally (syllogistically) structured understanding rather than regarded as a know how of argumentation, and sophia is identified with epistêmê plus nous (intuition of the truth of
 first premises). Thus begins the tradition of conceiving science as the systematically arranged product of inquiry rather than the critically controlled process of inquiry, and with that the implicit canonization of epistemologically conceived theory of understanding, which is concerned with the principles of assessment of putative products of inquiry to ascertain whether or not they truly deserve treatment as being knowledge in virtue of their method of derivation. -Joseph Ransdell "Peirce
and Socratic tradition"

________________________________

From: X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 12:07:07 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Pirsig, Socratic method and the koan


Joseph Randsdell:
"


      
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"Aristotle begins his inquiry in the Metaphysics by surveying the various aporiai that exist, drawing 
in particular on what puzzled his predecessors. Aristotle claims that 'with a view to the science we 
are seeking (i.e. metaphysics), it is necessary that we should first review the things about which we 
need, from the outset, to be puzzled' (995a24). Book Beta of the Metaphysics is a list of the aporiai 
that preoccupy the rest of the work."-wiki

Ron:
And here is where I believe, the concept of
"truth" eclipsed that of the dynamic method 
of virtue.