Platt
No intent to confound, confuse, or criticize, but I admit that this is a
convoluted sentence.
> I'm equally sure that even though Platt, for instance, may not
> like or buy this interpretation he'll NOT see fit to call me or Pirsig
> an ignorant liar or plagarist because he does not agree with, or
> understand, this PoV.
I was trying to point out to Kevin that suggesting Pirsig is either
ignorant or a plagarist because he did not refer to Heidegger's work is
simply "unecessary roughness" that adds nothing to the discussion except
animosity. And that even though you have made it quite clear that you
are no fan of Postmodern philosophies, if I suggested, as I did, that
Pirisg's work could be called 'postmodern', you (as a GOOD example)
though possibly in vehement disagreement, still would NEVER use those
terms to characterize my thoughts.
But the part of Wilbur I was refering to starts in the section titled
"The Postmodern Watershed"
"KW: ... And the fundemental Enlightment paradigm is know as the
representation paradigm. ...et al
and then continues
Q: But whats wrong with the representation paradigm? I mean we do it all
the time.
KW: It's not that it's wrong. It's just very narrow and rather
limited... the limitations [are] knowledge consists basically in making
maps of the world.... the problem with maps is: the leave out the mapmaker.
KW:... And no matter how different the various postmodern attacks were,
they were all united in an attack on the representation paradign"
BECAUSE IT LEFT OUT THE MAPMAKER.
So postmodernists reintroducted then importance of the 'mapmaker' but at
the same time most de-valued 'maps'. What people like Wilber,Pirsig, and
other 'perennial philosophers' say is you have to have them both and
here's a way they may be interrelated.
The other thing that postmodern reemphasized is that while it is
possible to empirically 'read' a 'map', the only way to gain knowledge
of a 'mapmaker' is talking to him, through asking, 'What do you think?"
and then interpreting what he says. And this interpretation will in part
be based on both your worldviews and ultimately from a philosophy
standpoint are resolved though a combination of both community and
individual dialogue. Postmodernism also points out this process is never
quite right, never done, and, as Wilbur pointed out, at it's extremes
can lead to "massive contradictions" and new problems that have to be
overcome if the whole process is to continue to evolve.
It is in this light that I claim that Pirsig is 'postmodern' in that
before Rorty's critique of Derrida (1978-79) suggesting "Philosophy as a
Kind of Writing" Pirsig had already done it. His 'kind of writing' as
both novel and philosophical essay illustrates the interelation between
the 'mapmaker' and the 'map', between the individual, the individual as
a philosopher, personal history, history in general, his philosophy, and
philosophy in general. All the while reminding us that the division
between fact and fiction is razor thin, in as much as no fact is
completely free from fiction, and no fiction is completely free from
fact. Then given that, how might one go about constructing a 'good'
system to taking into account all these conflicting and desparte facts
and fictions.
3WD
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