Dear Platt,
I'm a bit surprised to learn from your 27/11 10:48 -0500 posting
that you're "not a fan of the 'story telling' explanation of how
we manage to negotiate our way through life" and that you neither
"consider discussing principles of a metaphysics a story-telling
exercise".
I chose my metaphor of a story because you wrote 29/10
13:15 -0500:
"As noted above, our thinking in language is subjective-object
thinking. From that I see no escape other than understanding by
means of art. (That's why Pirsig used a novel form instead of an
academic paper.)"
Isn't "Lila", being a novel, both a discussion of principles of a
metaphysics and a story-telling exercise???
"For me it's more of a search for an elegant intellectual
pattern." (you 27/11 10:48 -0500 again)
For me too (even if I would prefer to use "system of ideas"
instead of "intellectual pattern" to prevent misunderstanding
patterned quality for an object-with-quality you can search for)
and I fail to see why I shouldn't describe this search as a
story-telling exercise.
"My goal here is to interpret the master's work" (you 27/11
10:48 -0500 again)
In other words: your goal is the philosophology "the master"
criticizes in chapter 26 of "Lila"?!?
I, like Pirsig, prefer creative thinking, creating my own MoQ ,
comparing it with Pirsig's MoQ, see where it differs and drawing
conclusions as to how it should be further developed. My
conclusion (in my postings to you and Marco) was that the MoQ
needs a better meta-ethics. I for one am not really happy with
Pirsig’s answer to “How can we know what we should do?”. There
should be more to it than "keeping our hearts and minds open to
DQ", taking it out of the realm of "discussion of principles of a
metaphysics", as DQ is indefinable according to Pirsig.
By the way, has your goal changed since you wrote 2/7 10:47 -0400
"I think Pirsig's hypocrisy does indeed damage the veracity of
his
metaphysics. ... I will now reexamine the MOQ in the light of of
an author who may be pulling our collective legs." ...?!? Or has
this re-examination showed you that "keeping our hearts and minds
open to DQ ... is really Pirsig’s only advice on 'what to do'",
something you apparently didn't see 2/7?
You also wrote 2/7 that "the MOQ can be interpreted in ways to
justify our moral preconceptions (meaning it can be all things to
all people and thus meaningless)". You seemed disappointed then.
Isn't it time then to try and create (collectively) a MoQ with a
better meta-ethics that CANNOT be interpreted so arbitrarily?
Your amendments of Pirsig's MoQ ("Personally, I would prefer that
he let up on the immorality of eating meat. Also, I think he
erred in assigning Islamic hatred of the West to our release of
biological forces. Instead what really ticks them off is our
intellectual superiority. Finally, I have suggested a fifth moral
level of Art") seem too limited to justify agreement with my
statement of 6/11 22:27 +0100:
"The fact that 'Pirsig's metaphysical somersault' (Bo 6/11 9:04
+0100) wasn't complete and that he still confused things and
patterns at the end of 'Lila' doesn't excuse us for making the
same mistake." Do you really agree with that statement??
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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