[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mary (John and Joe quoted) --


> [John speaking to Bo]:
> the main point of the whole MoQ - Reality's fundament is Value.
> Which is rendered meaningless by the "Quality = Reality"
> formulation.  I don't buy that substitution a bit.  Reality is
> formed by Value, not the same thing at all.

[Mary]:
> You're right that it's not the same thing at all.  To say reality is
> 'formed' by value is to ascribe to the 'blessed trinity' of subject,
> object, and value.  This is SOM with Value as whipped topping
> which is easily demoted to 'the value is in the eye of the beholder'.
> If you go this way, the whole MoQ devolves into just another
> S/O Metaphysics.
>
> Reality does equal Quality.

[Joe]:
> In the SOM I studied, a schema for words was Substance and
> Accidents that inhered in the substance. Substance is a noun
> and Reality is a noun.  Quality, on the other hand, is an adjective
> which inheres in a substance. "Reality does equal Quality" is a
> confusing equality of poetic license.

For what it's worth to you folks, I have to side with Joe and John on the 
"value" of Value over Quality in this context.  (Incidentally, Joe, my 
dictionary lists both terms as nouns.)  But I am a "valuist", and the 
connotation of Value as "something desired" makes it eminently more suitable 
to me than Quality for connecting awareness to the phenomenon experienced. 
Quality, in comparison, is generally associated with a product's inherent 
properties rather than its valuistic appeal or attraction to the observer.

Mary complains that saying "reality is 'formed' by value is to ascribe to 
the 'blessed trinity' of subject, object, and value."  Yet, if a valuistic 
essence is the common denominator, as Pirsig suggests, is it not the very 
link that unifies subject and object and overcomes duality?   Why is that a 
flawed concept?

In my opinion, equating Reality to Quality is tantamount to saying Reality 
is good or efficacious, as if the alternative could be "better".  But when 
Reality is posited as Value, the equation takes on an ontological meaning, 
suggesting that a cosmic process is afoot that involves our highest 
aspirations.  Indeed, I'm surprised that a wordsmith of Pirsig's calibre 
should choose such a prosaic term as "quality" to express his fundamental 
reality.  (I suppose this makes him a 'qualityist' instead of a valuist. ;-)

Of course, as an essentialist, I don't regard existence (the valuistic 
"reality" Pirsig has defined) as fundamental.  But I do support his view 
that Value (= Quality) is the ground of experiential existence, as I suspect 
all three of you do.  I consider the Metaphysics of Quality a courageous 
step in the evolution of empirical philosophy.  What it lacks is an ultimate 
source -- namely, the uncreated immutable progenitor of provisional 
otherness.

Essentially speaking,
Ham