Friday, February 11, 2005

anthonymcwatt.co.uk : Pirsig's annotations on Copleston

anthonymcwatt.co.uk : Pirsig's annotations on Copleston:

Coleridge and [Pirsig]:


"The ultimate principle is to be sought in the identity of subject and object. [This is strikingly similar to the MOQ.]



Where is this identity to be found? [At this point Coleridge is at the same door that Phaedrus was at, but he doesn’t have the key of Quality with him.]  So he answers: 'Only in the selfconsciousness of a spirit is there the required identity of object and of representation.' [What in the world is selfconsciousness of a spirit?] But if the spirit is originally the identity of subject and object, it must in some sense dissolve this identity in order to become conscious of itself as object. [Ridiculous]. Self-consciousness, therefore, cannot arise except through an act of will, [How did will get in here?] and 'freedom [How did freedom get in here?] must be assumed as a ground of philosophy, and can never be deduced from it'. The spirit becomes a subject knowing itself as object only through 'the act of constructing itself objectively to itself'.  [This is the sort of nonsense that has inspired logical positivism."]



I think "will" refers to the human function of following a DQ event with a conscious action at the biological/inorganic level.
I think "freedom" refers to the human function of following a DQ event with a conscious action at the social/biological level.

That's how they got there.

The"spirit" is the DQ event registering in intellect. "Identity" refers to the intellectual pattern that results, which, once conscious, creates a social pattern of value within one person's mind (its web of social pov's). It is only manifest to others, though, as "freedom" or "will."

Note: the sentence above would be too unwieldy to include this, but I must make a concession to the word "conscious." Without changing the meaning of the rest, realize that that particular interaction could be just as well with the somatic (unconscious) cognitive forms of perception and storage.

What word to use? Recognized? interacted with? aaaah..


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