[MD] SOM & the MOQ's four levels as a form of realism

[Hamilton Priday]

Greetings David --


On Monday, May 06, 2013  at 12:59 PM, David Morey wrote:

> Taking a different option over realism is not to reintroduce SOM, 
> subject-object metaphysics makes a mess of realism, but it is much more
> about the metaphysical substance and ontological status of subjects
> and objects then it is about realism, that is pretty obvious and 
> pretending that SOM cannot be separated into its different elements is 
> easily done. It is obvious that realism is a separate philosophical idea 
> from subject-objects essentialism, and there are many forms of non-SOM 
> realism, AN Whitehead's philosophy for example, Roy Bhaskar's for another.

A philosophy must account for the duality of subjects and objects.  Whether 
you consider them "real" or not, subjects and objects comprise your 
experience and are, therefore, integral to your ontology.

I don't know where you got the impression that essentialism is a 
subjects/objects philosophy, unless it's someone else's thesis that I'm not 
aware of.

Essentialism, as I expound it, is based on Essence as the fundamental source 
of all differentiation, conscious experience being the "sensible locus" of 
this dualistic system we call existence.  But existence is a duality in more 
ways than as an S/O split.

Dimensionally, experiential reality is a space/time system divided into 
being/nothingness and sensed in terms of large/small, light/heavy, 
bright/dark, rough/smooth, comforting/foreboding, bright/dark, good/bad, and 
all the other universal standards by which we define its physical 
characteristics.  Within these limits of finitude lie the aesthetic and 
moral values that define "Quality patterns" in Pirsig's SOM.  These values 
would not exist were it not for the sensible agent who actualizes essential 
Value as the differentiated world of things we call reality.

Now, is this ontology "realism" or "idealism"?

I leave the decision to your intellectual judgment.

Thanks for this opportunity, David.

Essentially speaking,
Ham