[MF] A thirty-thousand page menu with no food?

Steve Mack smackc4 at optusnet.com.au
Tue Jan 31 16:29:02 PST 2006


This is probably a multi-pathed triple-helix 'thought' on my behalf, but 'thought', if it's accredited as requiring a language to 'operate', would suggest to me that animals lets say, must also need a language in order to think.  And if they need a language to define objectivity, then do they not ALSO require vocal language in order to define the objects on which they think of?

 

Steve Mack



Matt:
Its true, that is a place where I read a little bit into Pirsig.  The reason 
I do is, one, when he says that for mystics metaphysics is like a menu with 
no food, what is a metaphysics but words?  And two, I don't know what 
"thought" is supposed to be if its not "language."  I don't know what 
non-linguistic thought is.  True, what we call feelings may not be 
linguistic, but when it comes to thinking I think its linguistic or 
something else.  This is one of the places that my pantheon grows a little 
bigger than just Pirsig and I've learned that thinking of language as trying 
to "express" something is a bad idea (at least when trying to pick which 
metaphors we use when doing philosophy).  I don't really want to get into 
the issue, but if you want an idea of what I'm thinking, you could look at 
my post (amidst my overlong conversation with DMB) "Language, SOM, and the 
MoQ" (Nov 16).  The connection is that I think language-as-expression is a 
mirror image of representationalism and should be ejected with the rest of 
SOM.

Matt


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