[MD] Some historical perspective

Fri Oct 23 03:15:53 PDT 2009

Bo,

It may be a blind alley, but I will need to find out for myself.

Yes I agree that arête was well represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey
centuries before.  

Ugo Zilioli will be contrasting relativism _against_ subjectivism and
emotivism, which is how Plato defined what Protagoras was teaching.  Well,
we know Plato cannot be trusted.  Plato's Theaetetus and Protagoras will be
the vehicle of exploration.  Besides, it seems to me, that Phaedrus
identified with the Sophists in opposition to Plato.  He saw something
beyond the standard interpretations.  Now I want to see what I can see.
There's also a book by Joseph Margolis, 'The Truth About Relativism' that I
will try to get. -  Why cannot arête be a timeless, quality term?  

What should I paint?  I need a model; come sit for me.

Marsha  

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of
skutvik at online.no
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 4:32 AM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Some historical perspective

For  Marsha

22 Oct. u wrote:

> Hmmmm.  We will see.  This book I've mentioned, 'Protagoras and the
> Challenge of Relativism' by Ugo Zilioli presents the conflict between
> Plato and the Sophists (Protagoras) as the conflict between Relativism
> and Objectivism.  You seem to connect the 'subjective' with the social
> level, but this does not seem to represent Relativism as presented by
> Protagoras, who is the originator of the 'man the measure' doctrine and
> considered the greatest sophist. It looks like I will need to buy this
> book. Such fun! 

"Relativism" opposes "objectivism", they are another intellectual - S/O 
- couple, but we are supposed to see things from MOQ'a meta-level. 
The least thing I do is "to connect subjectivity with the social level" 
rather maintain that the Sophist were the SUBJECTIVIST who 
confronted Plato's OBJECTIVISM.*)

*) What I mean is that intellect as a static level knew no level, it merely 
saw itself as Objective Truth rising above the subjective, superstitious, 
ignorant and bigoted past. Thus "subjectivity" belongs to intellect (its 
derogatory term for past) while the Social level proper is neither 
objective nor subjective, it's from before - or below - intellect's S/O.

ZAMM says that the Sophists defended "Aretê" and they may well 
have claimed that - all Greeks of that age professed to be "aretêists" - 
but the true "Social Aretê" (described in Kitto's book) were from least a 
thousand years before the the Sophists.  No they  were deep into 
intellect's development and had entered its see-saw on the relativist-
subjective seat, with Socrates and Plato on the other objectivist end.. 

You are on the blind alley of MOQ a subjective (relativist) movement, 
while it really makes both "objectivism" and "relativism" part of its 
intellectual level. Meaning that neither has a separate existence but 
are dependent on each other. I'll give you one example of this 
interdependence: Einsteins Relativity claims that the space curves due 
to the presence of mass. But "curves" in relation to what if not an 
absolute straight "space". See? 

Snap out of the static intellectual level, and stop reading all these 
books and articles all written from Intellect's premises..

Bodvar

.   

> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
> [mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of
> skutvik at online.no
> Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 5:14 AM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] Some historical perspective
> 
> Marsha & Ron
> 
> 21 Oct.  Marsha wrote:
> 
> Marsha before:
> > Within the last few months I have come to the conclusion that, like
> > Bo has been arguing, that Intellectual patterns are ALL of the
> > subject/object type.  That is, Intellectual patterns are about the
> > process that reifies concepts and symbols to be acted upon by a
> > independent self.  The pronouns and nouns are a dead giveaway.  This
> > is not from the MoQ point-of-view, but from a SOM point-of-view.
> 
> Ron :
> > It is precisely this SOM point of view that MoQ rejects. The point
> > of view that is absolute, cultural-centric and value-less.
> 
> I appreciate your support Marsha's but "reification of concepts" is
> the least thing the intellectual LEVEL does. It says that concepts are
> SUBJECTIVE representations of an OBJECTIVE reality "out there" and
> moreover that this objective reality is independent of our subjective
> "antics"; Prayers wont change anything, magic rituals are useless,
> nature follows its laws regardless of what we do or think. 
> 
> >From ZAMM page 368
> 
>     Now Plato's hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and 
>     Socrates are defending the Immortal Principle of the 
>     Cosmologists against what they consider to be the decadence 
>     of the Sophists. Truth. Knowledge. THAT WHICH IS 
>     INDEPENDENT OF WHAT ANYONE THINKS ABOUT IT. The 
>     ideal that Socrates died for. The ideal that Greece alone 
>     possesses for the first time in the history of the world. It is
>     still a very fragile thing. It can disappear completely. Plato
>     abhors and damns the Sophists without restraint, not because they
>     are low and immoral people...there are obviously much lower and
>     more immoral people in Greece he completely ignores. He damns them
>     because they threaten mankind's first beginning grasp of the idea
>     of truth. That's what it is all about.  
> 
> This is what the INTELLECT in a MOQ context is all about. But in ZAMM
> Pirsig makes it sound as if the Sophist stand for Quality, but this
> passage reveals the true context. They were the subjectivists of the
> budding SOM while Plato & Co were the objectivists. 
> 
> Now, the point is that S/O distinction (as reality's base - as SOM) is
> WRONG, mind and matter interact, prayers work for those who believe,
> magical rituals makes people die or well in the cultures that believe
> in such. These SOM-induced dilemmas was what the MOQ addressed and
> what it resolves by showing that the dilemmas are caused by it's
> static quality while its enormous VALUE is due to the position as the
> highest level. 
> 
> I fell that you people are completely off-track regarding the big
> picture. DMB, Ron, Ian .. the resurrected Squonk ... all who have
> tried to disprove the SOL up through the ages may be great thinkers,
> but to re-write ZAMM:
> 
>     Bodvar abhors and damns them without restraint, not because 
>     they are low and immoral people, he damns them because 
>     they threaten mankind's first beginning grasp of the MOQ. 
>     That's what it is all about  
> 
> Their "intellect" is what the intellectual level has hypnotized us
> into believing, namely  something "conceptual" going on inside our
> subjective minds, totally and principally different from what it
> "conceptualizes", while MOQ's 4th.level is the VALUE of this
> distinction. I guess this is just more water on geese, that you will
> go on about "reification of concepts" and the other try to show how
> many non-S/O "intellectual patterns" they can find before breakfast.
> 
> 
> Bodvar
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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