[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[david buchanan]

Khoo said:
One of my observations previously has been the scant work done by Western philosophers on Eastern civilisations. Even then those few tend to see it from the Western worldview, invariably the SOM perspective. In this view it is difficult to understand and even accept that other cultures and civilisations had evolve their own versions of intellect and arrived at an intellectual level quite different from the SOM-dominated Western version.

dmb says:

If it's any consolation, there are at least a few decent Western interpreters of Eastern ideas. Just the other day I heard an old recording of an Alan Watts lecture in which he describes the differences between Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy in a way you'd likely appreciate. What Horse referred to it as "process philosophy", Alan Watts says the Chinese view "reality as a verb". which is the same idea in different terms. and if Sneddon's Master's thesis is any indication (It compares the MOQ to Whitehead's process philosophy), Pirsig's is a process philosophy too. In Hindu culture, he says, the basic view is that "reality is a drama". This is similar to the Chinese view insofar as they both view reality as an ongoing event that's full of conflict. The basic Western view is that reality is a thing, usually a made thing, like a clay pot. (As our creation story goes, Adam was molded from the dust and God breathed life into it.) You can see how "the metaphysics of substance" and "scientific materialism" could grow out of that basic view of reality. You can see how the philosophical distinction between mind and matter could have grown out of that mythical distinction between the dust and God's breath of life. And so it goes in the East, no? The ancient myths becomes present philosophies and the present philosophies still bare their mark.

Alan Watt specifically talks about the subject-object distinction in connection with this and this explains why the East doesn't have a problem with SOM, saying essentially the same thing Pirsig said about SOM being Western. He even talks about the structure of our language as a factor the way Pirsig does. 
Then of course there is Northrop's "Meeting of East and West", Pirsig's original inspiration. One Quarter of Joseph Campbell's "Masks of God" is devoted to Eastern Mythology and he seems to understand these sorts of differences too. There is no way to truly get outside their Western perspectives and there must be some things that are nearly impossible to translate but the ones I read all seem quite respectful of the fact that other views can be excellent and different at the same time. 


Khoo said:
Horse brought this out earlier in his reference to process metaphysics. A wiki reference to Ancient Greek thought says that the formal development of this theory begins with Heraclitus's fragments in which he posits the nous, the ground of Becoming, as agon, or "strife of opposites" as the underlying basis of all reality defined by change. That balance and conflict were the foundations of change and stability in the flux of existence. Plato and Aristotle have however posited true reality as "timeless", based on permanent substances, whilst processes are denied or subordinated to timeless substances.

dmb says:

Right, and Pirsig paints it, that's the crucial moment in the West when the Sophists were slandered as relativists and the timeless realities were set apart from the ever-changing empirical reality. Gold was the standard because it was incorruptible. It didn't rust or tarnish. In a world where flowers whither, eggs go rotten, marble cracks and people die, change was a form of evil. A religion that promised eternal life and streets of gold was bound to become popular in world like that, eh? The metaphysics of substance extends all the way to heaven, I guess. 



Khoo said:
The Metaphysics of Quality provides the tools to compare two separate civilisations based on two different Metaphysics by unifying them under one Metaphysics of Value. For that matter do we have the tools to understand and appreciate the Metaphysics of every other respectable civilisation Man has spawned?


dmb says:

The world is too small. It has to be tried. And they say you don't really understand your own culture until you really see another's. Pirsig and others make me think it's quite possible to understand and appreciate the East to some extent. But I do wonder how much is lost on me or even lost my favorite translators. 



Khoo said:
... And perhaps the key to tapping into Quality has less to do with discussing it than living it.


dmb says:

Well, it's definitely good to get outside and I'd go crazy if I didn't get big doses of silence every day. But I'd like to think that discussing Quality can be a high quality endeavor, that doing philosophy can be an art form. Pirsig's use of the art gallery analogy suggest that. His characterization of physicists as creative artists fits neatly with this idea too.
You'd think paintball would count as an art form too. At least there is some paint involved, but no. It's just fun. Painting by numbers doesn't count either, and that involves brushes and a canvas as well as paint. Counts against you to paint that way, in fact, unless you're a child. Stand up comedy and poetry can be art forms and they're nothing but words, so you never know what's gonna be art.


Mon, Jul 19, 2010, david buchanan
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2