Marco to Kevin, and all pro- and anti- Heideggerians
As I wrote in a precedent message, I've also found in the past
similarities between Pirsig and Heidegger. I admit I'm not an *expert*
of Heidegger, and all I know about him comes from other thinkers.
I've recovered a book of an Italian philosopher, Emanuele Severino, "La
legna e la cenere" (wood and ash), in which he talks a lot about
Heidegger.
I try to translate Severino from Italian to my poor English.... sorry.
"There are exaggerations about Heidegger, in every sense. While in the
Anglo-Saxon world many are ignoring him, in the continental Europe many
are excessively enthusiastic. However, it's widely ignored that several
Italian thinkers preceded a lot of Heidegger's basilar points,
independently and before him. For example, the theme of *subjectivity*.
If the *subject* is, in the modern philosophy, the foundation of the
world, while being becomes *object* - that is: produced by the
*subject* -, the Italian philosophy of early XX century had already
discovered motivations to abandon this modern concept of *subject* and
*object*.
Giovanni Gentile was already moving on this path, when he stated that an
absolute idealism is equivalent to an absolute realism... "
Then Severino goes on by saying that a lot of other Italian thinkers
(Carabellese, Bontadini, Calogero, La Vita, Guzzo, Mazzantini ),
preceded this and other's MH's thoughts. I think this point is very
relevant to this discussion.
a) Severino here clearly says that the Subject/Object dichotomy is
central in modern philosophy, and states that Heidegger abandoned this
dead end way. Here is a similarity between Pirsig and Heidegger, so,
Kevin, it's right to say that MH preceded Pirsig.
b) Severino also states that MH is ignored in the Anglo Saxon world by
many... I don't know to what extent this is true, however it could be a
reason for Pirsig's silence about him
c) But even, Severino clearly states that MH has been preceded in this
by other thinkers before him. Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944) is one of the
most important Italian philosophers of the XX century. [Actually, I've
never considered him a lot, principally 'cause he was a fascist: maybe
even in this he preceded Heidegger! ]. In 1913 (MH publishes "being and
time" in 1927) he elaborated his main treatise: "A Reform of the
Hegelian dialectics". In my old philosophy book, I read that Gentile
stated that "the absolute independence of the object is pure illusion".
Isn't it nice, Kevin, that your *legitimate* philosopher, MH, (or, at
least, his current supporters) is here accused by Severino for the same
*crime* you are accusing Pirsig for? It is very plausible (given the
well known contacts between Italy and Germany at those times) that MH
knew Gentile.... I don't know if MH ever talked about Gentile's works.
IMO there is no plagiarism, nor ignorance. Simply, it is usual that
similar ideas emerge in the same time in different places. It is an
evidence that these ideas are *good*: the subject/object dichotomy is a
problem, not only for Pirsig.
But what I would like to know is:given that there are similarities, what
are the differences between MH and RMP? Here I can't say a lot. Just a
point about something you wrote:
> and there's always going to exist
> an uncrossable gap of intrepretation
> because as heidegger's epic argues...
> we cannot divorce being from time
> or, there's no being beyond time
> or, as pirsig might say,
> a thing without value doesn't exist
> that is, every value lives
> in a very specific historical/spatial place
> (this is another way of saying that
> static qualities can never capture Dynamic Quality,
> or as heidegger puts it,
> beings can never capture being ...
> 'The being of beings 'is' itself not a being' (p6))
This " there's no being beyond time " seems to be very similar to the
concept of Quality as Event (Time is, according to my dictionary "way of
placing one event in relation to another").
However let me say that indeed Pirsig offers his concepts in a simpler
way... and this is not a secondary aspect!
You also suggest a comparison between Pirsig's "Quality", and MH's
"being". Please, explain me a point, Kevin: when you state "beings can
never capture being ..." I agree, if this is like to say that static
patterns can never capture Quality. But also, Pirsig states that
there's a natural and moral process of evolution by which DQ becomes sQ.
How does Heidegger explain evolution? Is it a moral process?
> questions remain:
> 'what is is?'
> 'what does it mean to be?'
> (see how this question must be answered
> before 'what is quality?' can ever be)
Well, I guess the MOQ answer is: " *to be* means *valere*.
(I use this Latin/Italian term, that is in one word the English "to be
worth", or "to be valuable", as I don't want to use again the term "be".
It is just a problem of English language that you must use the term "be"
or "have" to assign a value to something....)
*to be* means *valere*, both statically, so that the value persists, and
Dynamically , so that the value interacts and evolves.
> that's the big difference between heidegger and pirsig
> pirsig tries to construct a metaphysics
> heidegger contstructs an ontology which
> then nullifies/transcends/answers metaphysics
Indeed, Heidegger tries to transcend and answer the "classic"
metaphysics. I've doubts that the MOQ needs to be transcended.
Let me know your thoughts.
Marco
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