[MD] The Heinous Quadrilemma

[mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net]

dmb,

thank you for paying attention.


Lainaus david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:

>
>
> Tukka said:
>
>>> I wish to provide maximum clarity for my argument. The argument is about
>>> the logical consistency and logical implications of LC RMP annotation 67.
>>> The annotation includes the following statement:
>>>
>>> MOQ idealism: "The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces
>>> ideas, which produce what we know as matter."
>>>
>>> The concept of Quality is undefined. The notions of logical consistency
>>> and logical implications can only be applied to defined concepts. They
>>> cannot be applied to the concept of Quality. Therefore, even though MOQ
>>> idealism includes the concept of Quality, the notion of MOQ idealism is
>>> logically equivalent to the ordinary notion of idealism.
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> What you are calling idealism here is actually radical empiricism.    
> The MOQ says experience comes first, that experience is the primary   
>  empirical reality. Idealism says that mind comes first.


Tuukka:
Pirsig defines radical empiricism as Quality -> mind -> matter.
Idealism can be defined as mind -> matter.
Since Quality is an undefined concept, it must be omitted from logical
formalisms and all connectives pointing to and from it must also be
omitted. Therefore Pirsig's idea of radical empiricism is logically
equivalent with idealism despite being rhetorically different.


>
> But let me address the issue of logical consistency instead. If I    
> understand your criticism, you're saying that notions of logical    
> consistency can only be applied to defined concepts, so they cannot   
>  be applied to undefined Quality. The quote from the end of Lila's    
> chapter 29, which I supplied a while back, helps to explain why this  
>   isn't really a problem. Yes it's true that logic and ?the    
> distinctions of reflective thought, such as those between    
> consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and matter, have  
>   not yet emerged in the forms which we make them" we can still    
> logically and consistently say that this "Pure experience" or    
> Quality "logically precedes this distinction? for one simple reason:  
>   We are not having an immediate experience but rather reflecting on  
>   the meaning of it and talking about the implications of it. We're   
>  talking about its place in the overall cognitive process. The    
> experience itself contains no logic and no distinctions but it    
> "furnishes the material for our later reflections"


Tuukka:

Consider this statement: "The experience itself contains no logic and
no distinctions but it 'furnishes the material for our later
reflections'"

If so, how can one say that "Pure experience" or Quality "logically  
precedes this distinction", if logic doesn't exist at that stage but  
instead begins to exist only after we start thinking or writing  
logically? Shouldn't the citation read that "Pure experience" or  
Quality "metaphysically precedes this distinction" or simply that  
"Pure experience" or Quality "precedes this distinction"?


>
> ?The second of James? two main systems of philosophy, which he said   
>  was independent of pragmatism, was his radical empiricism. By this   
>  he meant that subjects and objects were not the starting point of    
> experience. Subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts    
> derived from something more fundamental which he described as ?the    
> immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later    
> reflection with its conceptual categories?. In this basic flux of    
> experience, the distinctions of reflective thought, such as those    
> between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and    
> matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them. Pure    
> experience cannot be either physical or psychical: It logically    
> precedes this distinction? (Pirsig 1991, 364-5).


Tuukka:
A weird ending. As if logic could be used in a situation that precedes  
the existence of logic.


Regards,
Tuk