[MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited

[John Carl]

Ron,


Ron:

> I think the main problem is the beginning assumptions about what
> The term "intellect " means, to you.
>

Jc: I'm sure that's true.  Just about any philosophic problem hangs on our
assumptions.

Ron:


> Several definitions mention it as a faculty of the mind, a function of
> consciousness, the act of critical
> Thinking.


jc:  The act of critical thinking comes closest to my view.  Everybody has
a mind, but not everybody uses their intellect.

Ron;


> But you by-pass those entries and hold to what interests you.



Jc:  What interests me Ron, is that "the act of critical thinking" is only
half the story.  Why then does the MoQ make it seem like the whole
enchilada?

Ron:


> That traditional misunderstanding, which is what it is,
> A traditional misunderstanding of the meaning of "intellect" handed down
> by the Greeks. That misunderstanding is objectivism. Robert Pirsigs project
> Is to correct this misunderstanding.
> That's why it's important to read Plato and Aristotle and understand
> The origin of the Greek meaning and tradition of intellect. The project is
> about the recovery of a tradition of thought before misinterpretation
> divided it. "Art is born when out of the many bits if information derived
> from experience there emerges a grasp of those similarities in view of
> which they are unified whole."
> Aristotle metaphysics book alpha.
>
> "Knowing in the truest sense concerns
> What is best in the truest sense. So intellect finds it's fulfillment in
> being aware of the intelligible. "
>
> "It is this better state that the divine has being and life, the self
> sufficient activity of the divine is life at its eternal best."
> - book Lambda
>
> To the Greeks knowing what is best
> Is the divine aspect of being.
>



> >
> > JohnC
> >
> > PS:  By "respond" I mean without resorting to "because RMP said so".
> > Since's it's Pirsig's terminology I'm taking to task here, something more
> > is needed to defend it than the mere fact of what Pirsig said.
> >
> Ron:
> How else are we to tie into what we mean. This is a site dedicated to his
> work.
>


What I mean is, since I'm addressing a shortcoming in Pirsig's view, it's
nonsensical to respond with "but that's Pirsig's view".  or "you don't
understand the MoQ"

Look at the story - Phaedrus licked the daemon of objective intellect,
right?  And this thing, that he hated, was in himself as well, right?  That
which endlessly analyzes and examines critically.  Then in Lila, he falls
back into, what he terms himself, "degenerate activity". (Matt 12:43-45)

 But the immorality was not doing metaphysics, the immorality was
enthroning intellect as the king of all static being.  The reason I say
immoral is, because intellect was also doing the crowning.  A king cannot
crown himself.  There must be otherness, at the top level to avoid
recursion.

Also immoral, because making the MoQ thus, allows intellect to bully and
rule over all other patterns, putting itself first and reifying itself, it
then kills all opposition and alternative thinking.  It's too static.  DQ
has been placed in the unobtainable ether where its inaccessible and we
don't talk about it anymore.  My solution is to bring it down to earth, and
make artistic imagination the partner of intellect at the 4th level and not
only is that satisfying (there's no place for ART in the MoQ!!)  it's a
logical solution because without imaginative conceptualization, there is
nothing to critically analyze.  Intellect is good at selecting among given
ideas - but then where do given ideas come from?  Not intellect, or
Phaedrus would have deduced how hypothesi arose.

Thanks for hearing me out, Ron.

John