[MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited

[Ron Kulp]

John,
Ok, you feel creativity stands above excellence. But I ask, how is creativity set apart from problem solving? Isn't necessity the mother if invention? 
- Ron 

> On Jun 9, 2014, at 1:15 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
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