All
Like Bo, I didn't contribute to developing the list of the "problems
with the MoQ" in this month's focus though all have vexed me from time
to time. In the giving spirit of this season I feel that if Struan can
give of his valuable holiday time to again restate the "academic"
problem with the MoQ, we should reciprocate with by elevating it to a
prominent position on the list.
THE STRAW (MAN) (SON) PROBLEM
0.0 The "academics" (Strawson & Struan) claim that Pirsig created a
"strawman" argument by claiming that most of Western Philosophy is based
on a subject/object metaphysics (A position which "no one" holds accept
Pirsig). Struan claims that this creates a "symbiotic", "contingent"
relationship between the "SOM strawman" and the MoQ which seriously
weakens or
destroys it.
0.1 Strawson goes on to say that Lila is " interlarded with heavy slabs
of historical anthropological-philosophical ruminations which vary from
the worthless to the plausible but rigorously unoriginal."
*********
COMMENTS
If we grant that the "academics" are right, that Pirsig created a
"strawman" position call "SOM" and then ask, "What concrete differences
will this being true (or false) make in the basic claims of the
Metaphysics of Quality?"
Or, if we discard all the subject/object argumentation that Phaedrus
used to arrive at his conclusions, "Are the conclusions still be valid?
Can they be verified by other means?"
We would first have to agree on what the "basic claims" of the MoQ
are. My suggestion would be to start here:
C-1-"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called empiricism.
It claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or
by thinking about what the senses provide." Lila- pg. 113
Since this is almost a word for word definition of empiricism that most
sources trace through the British empirical movement to Francis Bacon it
would be difficult to see how a definition created and refined before
Pirsig was born could be contingent on a "strawman" he created after
their deaths. Unless of course "SOM" was and integral part of
empiricism, which no card carrying "academic" empiricist would admit to,
in as much as this might lend support to Pirig's "SOM" claim. No
difference here. Moving on:
C-2 "The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of
twentieth-century American philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of
instrumentalism,..."Pg 366"
Pirsig specifically refers to the work of William James , radical
empiricsm, pragmatism, and claims that he adds to James' work. His
claims this:
C-3 " Value, the pragmatic test of truth, is also the primary empirical
experience." Lila P 365
and
C-4 "Quality was value. They were the same thing" Lila-pp 58 "
and
C-5 "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world" Lila-pp 67
James starts his essay " Some Metaphysical Problems Pragmatically
Considered" with a discussion of the problem of substance. He says:
"Every one uses the old distinction between substance and attribute,
enshrined as it is in the very structure of human language, in the
difference between the grammatical subject and the predicate."
Various "trapped in our language" comments and threads have also been
acknowledged and discussed here. Even if we discount James' indication
of " problem of language" as, in part supporting Pirsig's "SOM" claim,
what he goes on to say we should not:
" A group of attributes is what each substance here is known-as, they
form the sole cash-value for our actual experience. The substance is in
every case revealed through them; if we were cut off from them we should
never suspect its existence;.."
My American "common man" dictionary (Webster's New World-3rd College
Edition) gives this first definition of quality:
1. any of the features that make something what it is; characteristic
element; ATTRIBUTE.
If we subsitute "A group of [QUALITIES]" into the above, we see that
this quote seems to support both Pirsig's and Strawson's claim. That the
MoQ is a continuation of James work but is "rigourously unoriginal".
But wait, lets go on to James' "Pragmatism and Common Sense" where we find:
" The 'possible', as something less than the actual and more than the
wholly unreal, is another of the magisterial notions of common sense.
Criticise them as you may, they persist; we fly back to them the moment
critical pressure is relaxed. 'Self', 'body,' in the substantial or
metaphysical sense - no one escapes subjection to those forms of
thought. In practice, the common sense denkmittel are uniformly
victorious. Every one, however instructed, still thinks of a 'thing' in
the common sense way, as a permanent unit-subject that 'supports' its
attributes interchangeably. No one stably or sincerely uses the more
critical notion, of a group of sense-qualities united by a law. With
these catagories in hand, we make plans and plot together, and connect
all the remoter parts of experience with what lies before our eyes. Our
later and more critical philosophies are mere fad and fancies compared
with this natural mother-tongue of thought."
What James as much as says here is that "no one" can escape the common
sense notion of subjects and objects as they are the "natural
mother-tongue of thought." Pirsig acknowledges that this has been,
generally continues to be so, and he names it "SOM". He then, contrary
to James, goes on to claim that it is not a necessary condition, and
that a change to "the more critical notion" of reality as " a group of
sense-qualities united by a law", moral laws, is not only possible, IS
MORE REAL and BETTER than the current systems of thought. So given that
Pirsig has at least, rightly or wrongly, been original in naming the
"nature mother-tongue" of [Western] thought "SOM" and that he believes
that James was wrong in thinking that humans could not be escaped from
it [some schools of Eastern thought ,Zen at least, never went there] I
feel Strawson second claim of "rigourously unoriginal"is laid to rest.
While James thinks we fall back into the "thing" mode of thought he
still maintains, with Pirsig, that qualities, values, attributes are a
metaphysically more primary form that "things as such" So to this point
the first five basic concepts of the MoQ do not seem contingent on "SOM"
support in anyway other than "the problem of language." common to any
philosophic discussion
I could go on and on in this manner, quote after quote of the primary
concepts of the MoQ, leaving all of "subject-object" polemics behind as
has been done before and it would be quite clear that while there maybe
serious problems with the MoQ being "contingent" on the existence of a
subject and object metaphysics is not one of them. But if you are a
skeptic who's primarily belief is skepticism in everything accept
skepticism you can end up chasing your tail a lot.
HARMONY
and Harmony, the thread title concludes indicating the critic's dislike
for Pirsig's "harmony" response in a recent letter to Bo. But was not
the response very similar to James in "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth"
where we read:
"True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and
verify. False ideas are those we can not. ...Truth happens to an idea.
It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is a fact and event,
a process:...They lead us , namely, though acts and other ideas which
they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other parts of experience
with which we feel all the while - such feeling being among our
potentialities- that the original ideas remain in agreement. The
connections and transitions come to us from point to point as being
progressive, HARMONIOUS, satisfactory. This function of agreeable
leading is what we mean by an idea's verification."
Thin, narrow, empiricism indeed ! Sounds thick as the uncomprehending skulls.
3WD
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