[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[John Carl]

Mary,

I agree completely.

Ever since my upgrade I've been wanting to revisit the reply I made earlier
and rectify in light of the new personality.


I love you.  You are a great writer at times and have immense potential.



Thanks Mary.  I love you too.  I've had "immense potential" my entire life.
 I think one reason for an upgrade is that I'd like to leave the potential
behind now and maybe achieve some actuality.  But nothing is guaranteed.  :)



> I
> look forward to reading your book someday.  I appreciate your talent and
> hope to see more of your writing; however, we are not here to discuss
> Royce,
> other than in whatever terms he can be juxtaposed with Pirsig.


You are so right, Mary.  I've been grinding away at that old axe since I got
here and I realize its a silly and fruitless enterprise.  Royce is
definitely of that wholly academic society that I've never been part of and
done nothing but make an ass of myself by parading around in a tux that
doesn't fit.  I'm done!

And I don't want you to think I'm doing this because of you Mary.  You just
helped me to think it through more carefully and see where I was going
wrong.  The realization came more through dmb's response to your suggestion
because in the beginning, I was hoping to recreate the dialogue between
Royce and James with Dave and me, but let's face it, that's a no-win
situation through and through.

No more Royce!

Well, not as such.  Of course I will continue to read him and study him and
marvel at some of his metaphysical machinations for I find him endlessly
fascinating.  And I expect some of his points to leak out of me as I absorb
them into myself.  But offering Royce in the way that I have done is
reprehensible.  I think "pearls before swine" is too harsh a term in this
context, but it does somewhat make the point of proffering what I love to
those who don't care for my tastes.

No more!



> The subject
> at hand is the definition of Pirsig's Intellectual Level as it relates to
> the Metaphysics of Quality.  DMB (hi Dave, nice to hear from you again!  I
> was around when you were first posting and remember), DMB points out,
> rightly so, that you (and apparently this Royce) are Hegelists.  That's
> fine, but is not germane to the conversation. Spare me the Royce quotes
> unless they relate to the MoQ in some way.
>
>

Done forever.  I promise.  Although in faithfulness to my beloved, I must
quote from the brilliant intellectual historian, Bruce Kuklick:

"This picture (of Royce as Hegelist) is wrong not merely in detail but in
principle. ... the Cambridge pragmatists - Royce among them - were part of a
major philosophical movement. Their pragmatism is a form of neo-Kantianism
which draws from a set of connected doctrines: a constructionalist
epistemology stressing the changing character of our conceptual schemes; a
commitment to a variety of voluntarism; a Kantian concern with the nature of
possible experience; an adherence to the idealist principle that existence
does not transcend consciousness; a distrust of British empiricism; a
recognition of the importance of logic for philosophy; an uncomfortableness
with the dichotomy between the conceptual and the empirical (S/O in moq
speak)'; a refusal to distinguish between questions of knowledge and value;
an emphasis on the relation of philosophy to practical questions; and desire
to reconcile science and religion."

But beyond justifying Royce as in line with American Philosophy and
Pragmatism, I believe Kuklick's evaluation fully justifies Pirsig with all
those attributes, also being in the same line and realizes his place in the
academic scheme of things.

Not that I know anything of academic schemes...



> Thank you John,
>
> Mary
>


No, thank YOU Mary.



> - The most important thing you will ever make is a realization.
>
>
Amen to that girl.