I have the start for some answers, but I like the question, I like looking for various answers, and synthesis is my favourite part of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis process--I'd rather we could synthesise as much as possible as that way...I dunno....that way our possiblities open more widely...heh...
But this thesis/antithesis/synthesis is the process which takes us nowhere but inwards within a set of assumptions: it is the very "Dialectic" that Pirsig believes has led us astray.
You can only make progress by stepping outside your assumptions and widening them by asking better questions of Reality: then only through keeping one foot within the existing assumptions.
So it is that in Pirsig's Inorganic, Organic, Social Intellectual hierarchy that one level serves as the "jumping off point"/ ratchet for the next.
I think the only point where I may differ from Pirsig is that he refers to Dynamic and Static Quality (and I adapt "Quality" to use as "Value" - it's all the same).
Whereas I see Quality or Value as a Continuum both Dynamic and Static with an infinitesimal "granularity" of "event" (Quality) or "transaction" (Value). "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I may be misunderstanding thesis-antithesis-synthesis, but as I understand it your sentence above is a thesis (that "this is the case"). The criticism of it would be the antithesis, and where the two different/contradictory conceptions are found to be in agreement within a more comprehensive conception...which sounds (to me--but it's early!) like:
You can only make progress by stepping outside your assumptions aka "a new thesis is to be proposed"
and widening them by asking better questions of Reality: aka querying current theses (aka propose antitheses to these theses)
then only through keeping one foot within the existing assumptions. aka synthesis (new model incorporates rather than denying previous models)...
Heh....I is not good at this....
And okay, I think there is nothing intrinsically "better" about the organic--it's better for me because I'm organic--planet earth is just perfect for me! Who'd a thunk it? etc...--but....this is a mushroom conception...if you extend your timescales by nine, ten, magnitudes then human life is the famous blink (no, much much less), while the real birth, growth, etc. is happening...at every magnitude...but I think I already said that (but I'll say it again--your "meaning" comes from within your magnitude as it relates to the others--from "star magnitude" (size and lifespan) existence is...different...but we obviously prefer the part called "life" (well, some of us) and in particular the aspects involved in "human life" (not much sympathy for bacteria overall and in comparison)...
(Crazinesses!) Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
But this thesis/antithesis/synthesis is the process which takes us nowhere but inwards within a set of assumptions
Aren't you forgetting empirical input here? That certainly seems like a way to move forward and take us outside the box without abandoning the underlying assumptions (to be honest, however, it's hard to see how you can abandon the underlying assumptions of science - that the world exists and can be investigated - without heading straight to solipsism).
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
