[MD] the sophists

[MarshaV]

On May 14, 2010, at 7:16 AM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR wrote:

> "Phædrus reads further and further into pre-Socratic Greek thought to find
> out, and eventually comes to the view that Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians
> was part of a much larger struggle in which the reality of the Good,
> represented by the Sophists, and the reality of the True, represented by the
> dialecticians, were engaged in a huge struggle for the future mind of man.
> Truth won, the Good lost, and that is why today we have so little difficulty
> accepting the reality of truth and so much difficulty accepting the reality of
> Quality, even though there is no more agreement in one area than in the other."
> 
> "And yet, Phædrus understands, what he is saying about Quality is somehow
> opposed to all this. It seems to agree much more closely with the Sophists."
> 
> ""Man is the measure of all things." Yes, that’s what he is saying about
> Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would
> say. Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists
> and materialists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a
> relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the
> creation of all things." (ZMM)
> 
> The intellectual patterns emerging from the Sophists were not SOM. They were
> clearly something better. And it is HERE that the SOM infestation of Western
> culture began. And it is HERE that Pirsig begins his treatise on correcting
> this.
> 
> Of course, you are more than welcome to rewrite ZMM and LILA to suit your SOL
> needs as Bo suggests (its the only way you can make an SOL even come close to
> making any sort of "sense"). 


Hi Arlo,

RMP does not reference SOM in ZMM.  In my interpretation the Sophists see the
world as relative. Plato&company see the world filled with fixed, concrete , external 
objects; objects of knowledge, objects of study, SOM.  Experience as relative, 
dependent of value, is what Phaedrus recognized in the sophists as 'better'.  

There is no rewriting, there is a difference in interpretation. 


Marsha