Art - By Harry Wareham

This weeks artist was Harry Wareham: http://subpots.wordpress.com/

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 47 'Open Topic'

Patriotism

In Defence of patriotism - By Samuel “The People’s Poet” Mack-Poole

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” – James Boswell.

“Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” – Adlai Stevenson.

April the 23^rd. Does that date mean anything to you? Or, my dear philosophers, is it just another day? For your information, just to keep you in the know, it is Saint George’s day. This, for me, is a day of vital significance; it is one I will celebrate with vigour. I will aim to explain why in this piece of philosophy. Whilst in conversation with Mark Tannett and Eliza Verethilo (but not at the same time), both members of The Philosophy Takeaway were quite hostile to patriotism. So, let’s define our terms: patriotism is defined as, “devoted love, support, and defence of one's country; national loyalty.”

Patriotism is an act of violence - By Eliza Veretilo

Here is the debate: what are the things we have caused and can be accounted for and what are the things we have not and can therefore not feel responsible?

Nationality is as accidental as eye colour. We did not consciously choose them. We cannot yet say they are our fault or responsibility.

Another example is the current war in Iraq. People do not currently feel their actions or lack of them are part of the reason for this ongoing massacre, even though our life-style might be part of the reason. Nonetheless, we hear countless amounts of people feeling proud of this or that empire’s achievements, regardless of the destruction it has brought upon others. Maybe your ancestors were very active in it. I do not know. But I have seen people very willing to ascribe the achievements of certain historical periods upon themselves; and of course, we have a selective memory on what events really took place, and which ones we are ‘proud of’.

The Existential Dunny Spider - By Selim “The People's Selim” Talat

A shanty toliet in the australian outback. A woman opens the creaky door and prepares her toliette, ignorant of the dunny spider lurking behind the bowl.

G’day mate, what are you doing here? Ah, one of those, I see. I never could quite understand what that was, not having one myself. Indeed, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on it mate.

I was waiting for you the other day. You never came. I thought you were never coming back! I have to say, I kinda missed ya.

This is a golden opportunity isn't it, this place. I noticed others come here too, every now and then, with roughly the same regularity as yourself.

I wonder how many of them see it as an opportunity, and how many just want to get it over and done with.

Mrs Thatcher: intuition vs logic, liberal vs conservative - By Martin Prior

If I were to do a one-page obituary of the ‘good’ lady, what would I say?  Many people would argue that Mrs Thatcher saved the country from the unions, and perhaps make mention of privatisation and monetarism.  In fact when people praise Thatcher - apart from those in Eastern Europe - they generally say that she suppressed the power of the unions when these latter were ruining the country. 

 

But others would say she did not in fact save the country: she saved it for the bankers, and the unions were simply trying to protect the workers from the banks: for nearly 25 years working people bore the brunt of ruinous economic policies such as keeping up the value of sterling, and acquiescing in terms dictated by the IMF, most notoriously in 1976.  And thus workers, through their unions, were in a militant mood.  And indeed they would say, rather than address the flawed economics creating this situation, Thatcher brought in doctrines to perpetuate what was basically in decline.

Robert Pirsig and the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) has sold more than 5 million copies, probably making Pirsig the most widely read living philosopher. Lila, his second book, adds to and expands the MOQ. His other published work is a paper presented at the Einstein Meets Magritte Conference held in Brussels from May 29 to June 3 1995.

At this event, Pirsig presented "Subjects, Objects, Data and Values. It concerns the meeting of art and science. Science is all about subjects and objects and particularly data, but it excludes values. Art is concerned primarily with values but doesn't really pay much attention to scientific data and sometimes excludes objects. My work is concerned with a Metaphysics of Quality that can cross over this division with a single overall rational framework”.

He also said “Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food”

Despite this, he’s served a banquet of food for thought. His books are described as philosophical novels. A better description would be ‘biographical treatise’ where a kaleidoscope of topics are addressed in a discursive manner, and in depth. The biographies are those of the author, scientific method, rationality, Greek philosophy, Western philosophy and philosophers, Zen and Zeitgeist, anthropology and, in my opinion, a proto concept of Memes. Like the physicists who seek a ‘unified theory of everything’, Pirsig bridges philosophic traditions with the added bonus of helping quantum physicists to describe reality in non-mathematical terms.

Including studies at Benares Hindu University, time in the armed forces, and writing technical manuals for a living, Pirsig was a teacher of rhetoric at Bozeman University. His contract stated he was to teach quality. He also taught in Chicago where the end of ZAMM occurs.

What is Quality? Pirsig writes “You know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes pouf! There's nothing more to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the 'betterness'? ... So round and round you go spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding any place to get traction."

ZAMM forensically examines the subject-object, mind-matter dichotomy back to its source. Pirsig establishes that rationality and descriptions of reality in the western tradition are causing a ‘disconnect’ in the way we perceive, think and live. His inquiry into values establishes there is something deeply amiss within our system of thought and Pirsig identifies the chief culprit as Aristotle, aided and abetted by Plato and Socrates!

The Sophist Areté (Excellence) is later translated in Plato as virtue. Consequently we miss the meaning of what the ancient rhetoricians were teaching. “Areté implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life”.

Socrates and Plato corral the Sophist Areté and tether it to ‘Good’ and to ‘Truth’. Socrates is the enemy of rhetoric through the dialectic, which has the power to make the weaker argument. Socrates swears he is telling the truth and through dialogue elicits and establishes a pre-construct. “Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has. The Sophists are the enemy.

Says Pirsig: “Plato’s hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and Socrates are defending the Immortal Principle of the Cosmologists against what they consider to be the decadence of the Sophists: Truth... Knowledge. That which is independent of what anyone thinks about it. Plato believed the dialectic was the sole method by which the truth was arrived at. The only one”.

“Aristotle attacked this belief, saying that the dialectic was only suitable for some purposes...to enquire into beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known as Ideas, which were fixed and unchanging and which constituted Plato’s reality. Aristotle said there is also the method of science, or "physical" method, which observes physical facts and arrives at truths about substances, which undergo change. This duality of form and substance and the scientific method of arriving at facts about substances were central to Aristotle’s philosophy. Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was absolutely essential for Aristotle”. And Aristotle goes further, making rhetoric the slave of ‘form’.

“Aristotle felt that the mortal horse of Appearance which ate grass and took people places and gave birth to little horses deserved far more attention than Plato was giving it. He said that the horse is not mere Appearance. The Appearances cling to something independent of them and like Ideas, are unchanging. The "something" that Appearances cling to he named "substance." And at that moment, and not until that moment, our modern scientific understanding of reality was born”.

Rhetoric, once "learning" itself, is reduced to the teaching of mannerisms. Aristotelian forms. “Some say the good is found in happiness, but how do we know what happiness is? And how can happiness be defined? Happiness and good are not objective terms. We cannot deal with them scientifically. And since they aren’t objective they just exist in your mind. So if you want to be happy just change your mind. Ha-ha, ha-ha. "Aristotelian ethics, Aristotelian definitions, Aristotelian logic, Aristotelian substances, Aristotelian rhetoric, Aristotelian laughter—ha-ha, ha-ha”.

“Walk into classrooms today and hear the teachers divide and subdivide and interrelate and establish “principles'' and study “methods'' and you will hear the ghost of Aristotle speaking down through the centuries...the desiccating lifeless voice of dualistic reason”.

Pirsig pulls down the church of reason and rebuilds it brick by metaphysical brick, resulting in an edifice where art and science meld. Where Quality is undefined and yet is shown to be the cutting edge of reality. That which creates the world. Imperceptible yet grasped.

Mike Gordon

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 47 'Open Topic'