[MD] D i a l e c t i c

[X Acto]

dmb said:
Pirsig favors pragmatic truth as a species of value, asserting that they (plural) are invented to serve human purposes. Pirsig values an expanded rationality (appealing to logic and the affective domain) and the art of rhetoric as the proper means of persuasion, excellence in thought and speech. To Pirsig, truth, intellectual quality, is the highest of static values, and is subordinate only to Dynamic Quality itself, which is what guides all static values, including our pragmatic truths.


Ron replied:
In an attempt to distill the similarities and the differences: It seems both Socrates and Bob value rationality as the proper means of persuasion (the meaning of the term rhetoric seems to simply serve to redundantly restate this). It also seems they both value intellectual excellence and which is only subordinate to the good. (Socrates compares the good to the sun and intellectual excellence as our visual ability to percieve.)

dmb says:
I think you are overlooking the very important differences between Socrates and Plato, which was the point of my little paragraph. For Socrates, the affective domain corrupts the truth. We see the same attitude in scientific objectivity. But for Pirsig, value-free science has got to go and including the affective domain of consciousness is central to Pirsig's expansion of rationality. This is the difference between dialectic and rhetoric too. The rhetorician doesn't operate without logic and rationality but, unlike the dialecticians, his view says that excellent thought and speech must also include values, the emotions, the passions, a feel for the work, etc. The rhetorician thinks the dialectician is trying to do the job with half a brain tied behind his back, so to speak. And, perhaps most importantly, Pirsig does not put "Truth" above all. It is the highest form of static quality, yes, but it is subordinated to DQ. That is a very big difference, one
 that can't be glossed over without undoing the MOQ. As I tried to show you before, Plato's Good was taken from the rhetoricians and - if you don't look very closely- it does seem to be the same. But it's not. Platonic forms are nothing like DQ. They are almost exact opposites, in fact. 

[Ron]
Indeed they are ..If anything the doctrine of ideas (theory of forms) is all about static quality, in fact it is stated that they are more
 meaningful and "real" than the dynamic flux of experience(appearence). Which has an argueable point in MoQ terms, but I would like to point
out as far as affection is concerned, is that Socrates claimed to know nothing except for the art of love which he connects with
the love of wisdom, a "passion" . I do think Socrates considered intellectual excellence to be a passion, a value, a love above all
others but I think he does well when aiming at elimenating emotional prejudices through dialectic. Rarely are we at our best
in clarity and precision when we are immersed in passions that tend to warp and exaggerate our sense of "good".
Which gives me pause to reflect that they are not very different, yet we can almost place our finger on where Plato went wrong,
when he reasons that truth and the Parmenidian "one" are the same. I contend that Platos good is taken from Parmenides and Zeno.
Socrates truth, however, is holding a social art (rhetoric) to intellectual standards of excellence. He maintains that the best rhetorical
explanations are based in empirical experience and that is why I believe Socrates was more of a Pragmatist that emphasized the
Plural and reasoned from those terms while Plato was a rationalist who emphasized the one and reasoned from this assertion.

In conclusion and keeping in line with the thread title, I believe that dialectic is essential for determining the best ideas as they
apply to radical emprircism. The test of the true is how successful concepts are in the stream of experience yet it takes rational
discussion to come to arrive at which succesful (true)concepts are "best".

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