Hi Oisin:
In general I agree with your interpretation of the MOQ, but found myself
stumbling a bit over your statements about good and truth in the
following passage:
> But "Quality" is only subject to belief as the intellectual word/concept of
> "Quality" (the map, our way of finding our way). Quality-in-itself is a
> radically empirical experience, the "thou art that" that dissolves the
> intellectual categories of subject and object. As the cutting edge of
> experience, it is not subject to belief, since it is existence itself -
> truly beyond good and evil and truth and falsity (since these are social and
> intellectual pseudopodia that try to reach out and absorb and digest
> reality/Quality).
Quality beyond good and evil? Beyond truth and falsity? That's what
tripped me up. In many places, Pirsig makes it clear that Quality, reality,
morality, experience and good are synonymous.
"Dynamic good and static good, which became the basic division of his
emerging Metaphysics of Quality." (9)
"The first good that made you want to buy the record was Dynamic
Quality." (9)
"From the cells' point of view sex is pure Dynamic Quality, the highest
good of all." (15)
"These moral bads and goods are not just customs. They are as real
as rocks and trees." (24)
"Truth is a species of good. That was right on. That was exactly what is
meant by the Metaphysics of Quality." (29)
And this clincher:
"It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized
Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience." (29)
Pirsig speaks of DQ as a "moral force" and showed how it exerts its
influence in the story of the brujo who wouldn't have understood what
you were talking about if he was asked what ethical principles he was
following. Instead he was motivated by the moral force of DQ that he
could only identify as a "a vague sense of betterness."
So it is a mistake to separate goodness and truth from Quality. Both
are part and parcel of Quality/reality, not something grafted on as a
social or intellectual afterthought. They are integral to pure experience.
Platt
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