[MD] Rhetoric

Thu Dec 22 15:59:15 PST 2016

Sometimes when you're curious about something, Wikipedia is a good place to
start.  Probably it's not a good place to end an argument, but it's
definitely a good place to start one:

>From the wikipedia article on process philosophy we find:

In opposition to the classical model of change as accidental (as argued by
Aristotle) or illusory, process philosophy regards change as the
cornerstone of reality—the cornerstone of Being
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being> thought of as Becoming
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becoming_(philosophy)>. Modern philosophers
who appeal to process rather than substance include Friedrich Nietzsche
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche>, Martin Heidegger
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger>, Charles Sanders Peirce
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce>, Alfred North
Whitehead <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead>, Alan Watts
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts>, Robert M. Pirsig
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig>, Charles Hartshorne
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Hartshorne>, Arran Gare
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arran_Gare>, Nicholas Rescher
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Rescher>, Colin Wilson
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson>, and Gilles Deleuze
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze>. In physics Ilya Prigogine
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine>[4] distinguishes between the
"physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers
not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a
conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and
science.[5][6]

hmmm.

jc

PS:  Tuk,  are you familiar with the field of

Mereotopology

???

Seems right your ally -

a branch of metaphysics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics>,
and in ontological
computer science <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(computer_science)>,
*mereotopology* is a first-order theory
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_theory>, embodying mereological
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mereology> and topological
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological> concepts, of the relations
among wholes, parts, parts of parts, and the boundaries
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_(topology)> between parts.

On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:47 PM, david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Hello, MOQers:
>
> I suppose everyone knows that people are suspicious of the emotional
> language in "rhetoric" and consider "sophistry" to be a form of
> manipulative deception. The conventional meaning isn't likely to change
> anytime soon and that's fine because there is empty speech and there are
> plenty of manipulative deceivers that deserve the name. In telling the
> story of philosophy Pirsig turns those meanings upside down.
>
>
> “Plato’s hatred of the rhetoricians was part of a much larger struggle in
> which the reality of the Good, represented by the Sophists, and the reality
> of the True, represented by the dialecticians, were engaged in a huge
> struggle for the future mind of man.” -- Robert Pirsig
>
>
> As the story is usually told, rhetoric is too emotional to be considered
> serious about the truth. Our feelings have no bearing on the truth, this
> story goes, and clear thinking is about cool logic and putting one's
> passions aside. But, Pirsig says, this story doesn't make as much sense as
> it used to.
>
>
> “It’s been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the
> passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an
> understanding of nature’s order which was as yet unknown. Now it’s time to
> further an understanding of nature’s order by reassimilating those passions
> which were originally fled from. The passions, the emotions, the affective
> domain of man’s consciousness, are a part of nature’s order too. The
> central part.” — Robert Pirsig
>
>
> At certain points in the re-telling and inversion of this old slanderous
> story Pirsig is downright angry about it. He finally realizes that the
> Platonic demand for passionless dialectic has the effect of excluding
> Quality, which is the whole thing for Pirsig.
>
>
>
> “Phædrus’ mind races on and on and then on further, seeing now at last a
> kind of evil thing, an evil deeply entrenched in himself, which pretends to
> try and understand love and beauty and truth and wisdom but whose real
> purpose is never to understand them, whose real purpose is always to usurp
> them and enthrone itself. Dialectic - the usurper. That is what he sees.
> The parvenu, muscling in on all that is Good and seeking to contain it and
> control it."
>
>
> And he's feeling triumphant about this discovery because it turns out that
> the Sophists weren't demagogues, hucksters, or confidence men. They were
> teaching Quality and they were teaching it the same way he had been
> teaching it to his student in Montana.
>
>
> "Lightning hits! Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were
> teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine 'virtue.' But areté.
> Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before
> form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been
> absolute. Those first teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality,
> and the medium they had chosen was that of rhetoric."
>
>
> And this re-telling of ancient history is part of the book's central
> project, which is a root expansion of rationality. The criticisms of
> rationality that he offers almost always involve the problem of objective
> truth. Value-free science has got to go, he says. Attitudes of objectivity
> make our thinking stiff and narrow and entail a denigration of subjectivity
> so that Quality is JUST what you like, is JUST your opinion or assessment
> of some thing or other. But this is part of that same old slander against
> the Sophists and rhetoricians, Pirsig says, and our form of rationality
> would actually be vastly improved by putting Quality at the cutting edge of
> all experience and all thought. Quality is right there at the very roots of
> our thinking and by including Quality our thinking is broadened and
> deepened and enriched by the inclusion of the emotional and aesthetic
> quality that pervades our thought regardless of whether we acknowledge it
> or not. You gotta have a feel for the work, he says, and that's not just
> about fixing motorcycles. It's about everything. All the time.
>
>
> For Pirsig, "rhetoric" simply means excellence in thought and speech.
> Rhetoric is truer than objective truth because it includes the heart as
> well the head, so to speak. To talk truthfully will mean that the claim is
> supported by evidence and its expression logically sound, just as before,
> but that's no longer good enough. Speaking truthfully also means that you
> care about the truth, have feelings about that truth and maybe your
> expression shows the power or the beauty of that truth. To move or persuade
> another is not a sinister manipulation or a deception. It's a good thing
> and we should love it somebody does it right.
>
>
>
>
>
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> provides a more coherent system for understanding reality than our current
> paradigms allow
>
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-- 
"finite players
play within boundaries.
Infinite players
play *with* boundaries."