[MD] Intellect vs. Intellectualism

[John Carl]

dave,

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 12:01 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> dmb says:
> I disagee but your framing is helpful. In a nutshell, I'd say that the MOQ
> already does synthesize thought and feeling and the only problem is that
> some people wrongly interpret the MOQ as if it didn't.


yes, and we are on  the same page here then.

The question is how to improve the MoQ so that it's more easily
interpreted.



> This is what the expansion of rationality is all about. This is what the
> rejection of SOM, amoral science, and attitudes of objectivity is all about.
>

Right.  I read the books and I agree that Pirisg was not promoting this
"intellect uber alles" view.  When you grasp the totality of his teaching,
you get that.  But when you just take the synopsis of 4th level =
intellectual you don't.  That's why I call it a "marketing problem" rather
than a  metaphysical one.


> As luck would have it, I was just reading a paper somebody mentioned here.
> It's about the British pragmatist Schiller. It would be safe to think of him
> as James's body guard. He defends James's pragmatism on this very point.
> "Until James", he says, "logicians had always talked as if beliefs grew up
> automatically in a soil of pure indifference".
>
>
Royce emphasized the same point in his excellent essay, "William James and
the Philosophy of Life", in which he rejected those who read James to be so
crass as to think "cash value" the end-all and be-all of existence.  But
when an intellectual system lends itself to a certain formulation, I think
certain steps toward rectification oughta be taken, which is why I've been
poking, prodding and trying to bring Royce into the dialogue.  Not as an
obviation or elimination of James, god forbid, but as an ameliorating
counter-balance.

Some people have had a hard time seeing this, but I have hope a loyal effort
will have it's impact.

John