Hi 3wd:
Thanks for your excellent review of James and Pirsig’s
philosophies. The following is a quote by James that IMO
supports Pirsig’s view of reality as a moral order:
“Reality consists of a conscious field plus its object as felt or
thought, plus an attitude towards the object plus a sense of self to
whom the attitude belongs. Such is a full fact of the kind to which
all realities whatsoever must belong. That unsharable feeling
each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny as he
privately feels it rolling out on fortune’s wheel may be disparaged
for its egotism, may be sneered at as unscientific, but is the one
thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality, and any
would be existent that should lack such a feeling would be a piece
of reality only half made up.”
The “conscious field” and “sense of self” occur simultaneously
and are the components of pure experience, the “immediate flux of
life” and the “stream of quality events.” The “object as felt or
thought” and the “attitude toward the object” are implicit moral
properties of “concrete” reality. Without “feeling,” i.e., moral
sensitivity, reality is “only half made up.”
At least, that’s the way I interpret James’s quote in light of the
MOQ. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. I’d be very much
interested in your take on this quote. Does it fit the results of your
investigation? Thanks.
Platt
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