[MD] Socrates ,Protagoras and the "relative"

[X Acto]

Hello John,


John:
> But in this breakdown, there is an ideal held as truth to be measured
> against.  "our" truth is relative to "the" truth or its meaningless.
>
> Ron:
> Well, theres a rather nice place to start, what are we holding our notions
> of truth and the "real" to?

John:
A good place to start indeed!  Which is why they call it "meta"physics I
guess.

Ron:
Or the physical prelude to Aristotles organon. What "is" is illusional and
forever in flux, Socrates really emphasizes this but what Protagoras
argues is that what is known is a product of social agreement, he contends
Virtue is the prime of any human society so that every member knows what
it is. In a sense, he states, as Pirsig, that virtue is a human universal. It creates
the world human societies live in. Socrates makes it a point to emphasize
the dynamic aspect of virtue to remind Protagoras that virtue is always changing
and therefore contextual and that if he's going to advertise teaching it he's going
to have to admit that he does not know what it is if he want to be virtuose.
Basically Virtue is a craft. One could say the same of the "true" or the "real".


Ron:
> ..see this is what I think drove people like
> Aristotle to develop scientific method. The question of what can we know?
>
John:
But you have to ask that question of what we can know before we begin the
scientifically methodical dice and slice.  You have to have an intellectual
framework to help form the questions.

We have to hear the music before we can move to the dance.

An Idealistic framework is the music, the scientific method is the dance.

Idealism says you have to have a framework before investigation can even
begin.

Ron:
Looking at the framework as the craft of virtue changes the notion and intent
of the investigation. Being crafters of excellence, the forms that are created
are custom fit to the type of inquiry in it's context of meaning as it arises.

John:
Pragmatism says no postulate is needed or wanted.

Ron:
Well, no universal postulate.

John:
Pragmatism appeals to people oppressed by SOM patterns of dominance.

People here on MD say the MoQ is philosophy of emergent meaning, which I
take it means they think the MoQ is purely pragmatic.  I've disagreed with
THAT postulate since day one of my sojourn here, so I oughta rise to the
occasion and make some kind of defense of my stance.


> Ron:
> You don't see a difference between method and philosophical viewpoint?
>

John:
Well at first I didn't see a fundamental difference.    What kind of method
you use determines what kind of philosophy you end up with and what kind of
philosophy you have determines what kind of method you use.  Philosophy and
method are intertwined.  I thought.

But then, even though this is true, your assertion of using relativism as a
rhetorical method makes absolute sense to me.  I've done it often enough, I
oughta know.

But when I snip this method out of my rhetoric and look at it
philosophically, I get a bad feeling like I'm just another dirty sophist
trying to make my weak argument appear stronger.

Ron:
But isn't the virtue of making that arguement to underline the idea
that meaning is contextual? your only a dirty Sophist if you use it
to further your own selfish gains. (which incidentally was Socrates gripe
with the Sophists).

John:
Wouldn't want that now, would we.

So, being the lazy sod I am, I could work out the fine distinction between
the truth that Socrates sought vs. the method he used to convince others,
but since I am lazy, I go to tried and true guides in the process.  So, my
"method" is to read Royce at you.

Actually, my second method is to read Royce at you.  My first is to comment
that Pirsig taught us that Socrates was the biggest sophist of 'em all -
deal with it.

But there's plenty of Pirsigians around here, and only one Roycean, so we'll
go with door number two.

I Start with his analogy of when we're trying to remember a name of an
acquaintance, this effort assumes the idea that we have a higher self that
knows and we will recognize when our present self remembers, brings to
consciousness this knowledge.  In this way we have a  self beyond the
present self of consciousness who is the test of truth.

"Similarly, the finite selves with their fragments of experience are parts
of the one larger self.  Our search for truth is a search for what we
already possess, and our deepest doubts and profoundest ignorance entail the
larger self."

Now I really like that.

"Our search for truth is a search for what we already possess."

So does that mean we can stop now?

No, because the search is real.  We search for what we already possess so
that we may know we possess it.  The Roycean goal is the constant search
for unity with the higher self. I like  Pirsig's "Peace of Mind" as  the
goal of our searches.

I mean sometimes you'll even see people who have "got it", still struggling
because even though they think they've got it, they aren't sure.  They don't
have peace of mind yet.

We should change the masthead:

"An enquiry into Value, meant to promote peace of mind."

Even though such enquiries usually accomplish the opposite!

Ron:
I quite agree, and it goes with what I've been saying about virtue, that
It is a craft. We build it into our constructions of meaning and value.

Ron prev:
I think the method speaks to an entirely different philosphical viewpoint
> one based in the inquiry of value rather than the hammering on the
> meaningless.
>
>
John:
Meaninglessness is a harder thing to define than Quality.  Everything has a
tiny bit of meaning, buried in its convoluted soul.  I don't believe in
"unpatterned experience" either.  Even sectioning off randomness into its
own corner is a dissection of perceived reality that is fundamentally
patterned.    I believe in nothing, everything is patterened, even nothing.

To paraphrase more of Royce, the relativistic skeptical dialogue leads us to
this: we are put in the position of considering, for a moment, two disparate
viewpoints.  Two distinct propositions.  In the consideration, we accept
them both.  Even if for a moment, even if only provisionally we must
consider the opposite view from ours and in so doing we momentariliy
encompass both and transcend our normal reality.

This is where our intellectual patterns are killed.

Now, out of this emptiness on another level, good arises.  How can I tell it
is good?  From the peace of mind it brings when it arrives.  Where does this
peace of mind come from?

Saying its just a biological reaction of the pizza I ate last night or some
sort of biological chemical rush generated more or less randomly, doesn't
compute for me.  I see Peace of Mind as being the human appreciation of
transcendant value - DQ.  Thus truth is relative, not to subjective
individuals and their emotional variance,  but to a transcendant value of
Truth that we label DQ to illustrate that this principle of good or
betterness works on more levels of reality than the intellectual.

Ron:
Intellectually speaking of course. But I think we are saying similar things.
Meaninglessness doesent exist in a universe of value.