For historical placing as is my bent, Wittgenstein
loved James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" and
Pirsig mentions the same title in his defense in LILA
of ZAMM. It's clear that Pirsig wrote ZAMM without
direct James influence other than cultural
assimilation. Pirsig, James, and Wittgenstein are
brothers of a charm for sure. Pirsig even defines how
he is different from James when he says "he combines
radical empiricism with pragmatism."
I would call a distinction though. There are 2
Wittgenstein's: early and late. Later Wittgenstein
renounces his earlier work. I've been feeling that
Pirsig sounds like early Wittgenstein though of late
and this email post shows that he might be a
Wittgenstein synthesist. I'm a synthesist, as my web
site www.appliedwittgenstein.com might attest. Might
Pirsig also combine Wittgenstein as he did with James?
I'd be interested in thoughts on that. Early
Wittgenstein was the formalist, and later Wittgenstein
was the "common sensist." You do need a formal system
(the levels) to straighten things out (wittgenstein's
formalism), but then there are certain things (morals)
that are more based on faith in the mysticism of life
forms (wittgenstein's later work). In a nutshell, that
would be Pirsig maybe, and that would be early and
late Wittgenstein.
Angus
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