Dear Angus,
Thank you very much for taking so much time with me!
I think I've got it!
And Barret is an interesting read. He's colorful and a real name
dropper! - he'd be great source for me to continue on with. From this
section alone I see I could probably use a pedestrian primer on Kant
(I hear he's a tough slog).
Your whole post to oisín is a fabulous reading list! It really helps
me that you've presented the examples with their authors and/or their
'schools of thought'!
Thank you very much again!
love,
Tanya
>Hi Tanya,
>
>I sense Pirsig is Jamesian on his ethics so from
>Barret's Illusion of Technique I will practice my
>typing skills with this:
>
>I remember my disappointment as a young student years
>ago when I first read the classic essay "The Dilemma
>of Determinism." The title lead me to expect some
>objective and logical refutation that would once and
>for all impale the determinist on its prongs and leave
>him squirming there forever. I expected, I think, some
>new and surprising facts or some new logical relation
>of the facts that would finally settle the question in
>favor of freedom. INSTEAD, James seemed to hurry past
>the objective question in order to get to the moral
>issues involved, and I was disappointed to find the
>bulk of the essay, as it seemed to me then, a moral
>appeal to the reader. For the dilemma of the
>determinist, as James presents it, is essentially a
>moral and not a metaphysical one. The objective
>question between freedom and determinism was thus left
>open and inconclusive as it had always been, and my
>young mind still felt dreadfully unsettled.
>
>But of course this is where the question has to be
>left, and James is entirely right to hew to the line
>he does. In this matter he is following the position
>of Kant a century before him. The firebreathers of
>determinism, like B. F. Skinner, who enter the
>dialectical fray convinced that they have seen the
>proof of determinism in their laboratory results last
>week, are greatly mistaken. The case for or against
>free will still stands where Kant left it. We have
>introduced all kinds of changes and refinements in
>terminology, but the objective merits of the case
>remain unaltered. Anything like a decisive proof for
>free will or determinism is unavailable. And where the
>matter is thus logically inconclusive, practical
>concerns enter. It makes a great deal of difference,
>practically speaking, if we do believe in freedom. We
>are more likely to improve our character if we believe
>that the power to do so lies in the exertion of our
>will. Determinism, if really followed in practice,
>would tend to close off the will toward such striving.
>Thus it is to our practical advantage to believe that
>we are free beings, and our subjective decision in the
>matter does have objective consequences in our life.
>Faith in freedom produces future facts that confirm it
>- at least in its practical efficacy if not its
>ultimate metaphysical truth.
>
>Freedom on such terms would seem to be a bald
>practical transaction, a cool quid pro quo. But what
>we have in the above summation is half, and less than
>half, of the Jamesian position. For if the belief in
>freedom is a moral choice on our part, it is
>ultimately for James also a religious act. Our moral
>life in the end makes sense only as an affirmation of
>some religious attitude toward the universe. Many of
>his pragmatist followers have sought to dilute this
>position; but it is nonetheless James', persistently
>though sometimes waveringly held throughout the body
>of his writings. To disengage his view, and present it
>more sharply, is the main burden of what we have to
>say in this chapter....
>
>So you can read it for yourself, but I am sure this is
>close to Pirsig's heart on ethics... Pirsig's
>"religious attitude" would be Quality I think.... and
>there you have it.
>
>Angus
>
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