[MD] the sophists

[skutvik at online.no]

Andre. 

16 May:

    Bodvar to Marsha quoting from ZMM: 'The results of Socrates' 
    martyrdom and Plato's unexcelled prose that followed are 
    nothing less than the whole world of Western man as we know 
    it. If the idea of truth had been allowed to perish 
    unrediscovered by the Renaissance it's unlikely that we would 
    be much beyond the level of prehistoric man today. The ideas 
    of science and technology and other systematically organized 
    efforts of man are dead-centered on it. It is the nucleus of it all'.  

Andre:
> If you are looking for more 'proof' that your SOL thesis is invalid as
> intellect dominating the entire intellectual level from the East to
> the West and from here to eternity, it says: 'in the whole world of
> Western man', you have it right here Bodvar. WESTERN man Phaedrus
> says. Though I presume that was not your intention. Be careful at
> generalizing.It was with Aristotle that a scientific, 'objective'
> intellectual pattern was born.

Is this some irony I can't fathom. Yes intellect has won the West - 
that's the point,  the Orient has transcended it and no longer has it as 
focus - is as myopic as ourselves - I take to be Pirsig's view and I 
agree. About Aristotle, yes it was here "substance" became the real, 
(objective) part of existence while "form" was deemed the illusory 
(subjective)part and thus we can see the shape of science - physics 
preferably . Is your grasp of what the Greek part of ZAMM is about that 
feeble?  

> And, once again I repeat what Phaedrus of ZMM suggested: It was with
> Aristotle that our scientific understanding of the world was born.Note
> that he does not say: that our ENTIRE understanding of the world was
> born. Nor does he say that out subjective/objective understanding of
> the world was born. He simply says that with this development Quality,
> that which the Sophists taught, became a species of truth and not the
> other way around.Truth won, the Good lost.

With your feeble understanding of the Greek part of ZAMM it's difficult. 
It describes the coming of SOM, how the search for "eternal principles" 
transcended the social-mythological past.This resulting in the first 
proto-SOM "Illusion vs Truth". Then the various suggestions over what 
was illusory and what was true. Plato's entry (Senses =illusory and 
Ideas =true) looks directly opposite to the modern SOM, while 
Aristotle's Form/Substance is more familiar, hence P's remark about 
science. The big thing however was the notion of an objective TRUE 
reality under the endless shifting impressions. THIS is what Plato saw 
threatened by the Sophists suggestion that all was "human". In 
modern SOM "human" has come to means subjective, hence my 
assertion that they were the first subjectivists.  


Bodvar:
> See, this is the objective part of what the MOQ calls the intellectual
> level,
 
Andre:
> And here you perpetuate your misunderstanding. In the MOQ the
> intellectual level is 'subjective' as the social level is. The
> 'objective'parts are the inorganic and organic levels. You are
> completely conflating and confusing the mind/matter, the
> subjective/objective and the subject/object concepts. To wit: you are
> conflating and, because of this, utterly confusing SOM and the MOQ!

If this is a war of attrition you win, I can't go into all these things each 
time, just to see you coming back as if nothing is understood, taking 
candy from children isn't much of a challenge. 

> Mr. Pirsig has shown them to be part of an evolutionary hierarchy of
> VALUES within the MOQ. They constitute different levels of evolution,
> different conceptualizations to abstract from our direct, pure
> experience on a moment to moment basis.

I see DMB's footprint here, but the MOQ's fundamental is NOT Pure 
existence/Concepts, but Dynamic/Static Quality. FYI

Bodvar