Greetings,
Philosophically speaking, I did not enjoy Anthony's review of John's
essay one bit. The immediate accusation of not being party to the
amazing revelation that takes one out of the mythical 'SOM' and into moq
land where one remains forever converted is in itself deeply
objectionable.
More concerning still is Anthony's continued insistence, typical of this
forum, that the moq is original in placing value as the fundamental
ground stuff of the universe. Contrary to the popular and simplistic
belief prevalent here, which considers Pirsig to have invented some
brilliant new way of looking at things, the original meaning of Idealism
was ('Concise Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy' - London - 2000 -
pg 379):
'any view for which the physical world is somehow unreal compared with
some more ultimate, not necessarily mental, reality conceived as the
source of value, for example Platonic forms'
I would invite those who are interested in taking philosophy further to
explore the work of, among many others, Plato, Fichte, (expelled from
Jena for atheism - he believed that God was the all good essence of all
there is rather than a supreme deity) Schelling ('Material nature and
the mind that knows it are different aspects of the same absolute
good'), Bradley, Kierkegaard, Rosenzweig, Levinas, etc, etc, for an in
depth study of this ancient, modern and indeed perennial Western
tradition.
Equally concerning is Anthony's disdain for the scientific community,
rightly identified by John as emanating from Pirsig. Anthony wonders
'how many members of the 'Church of Reason' actually recognise that
fields such as physics contain terms which aren't defined.' The simple
answer is almost all of them. Every philosopher and physicist of note is
surely aware that any theory will have at least some undefined terms,
for if all terms were defined we would have to have an infinite
regression of definitions, which is clearly impossible. You could argue
that some terms are defined by other terms which themselves have already
been defined, but this sets up a never-ending circle of words defined by
reference to other words and so on. In other words, we would have to
know a language in order to be able to speak it! It is self-evident to
anyone who thinks about it that some words (at least) will not be
'defined' as such, but 'understood' extra-linguistically and, although
Anthony may like to disagree, your average scientist can think quite
well and is fully aware of the limitations of the terminology he is
using. In fact, given the massive volume of literature on linguistic
philosophy last century and this, I find it difficult to believe that
anyone who has read any modern philosophy could claim what Anthony here
claims.
These complete misrepresentations or misunderstandings of both
philosophy and science might be acceptable for a layperson, but Anthony
describes himself as a 'philosophy lecturer at the University of
Liverpool' in his bio and a lecturer of Pirsig's work in his review.
Some clarification is in order, as I would hate to see anyone think that
the moq has academic philosophical respectability when it clearly does
not and the kudos attached to being a lecturer at a reasonably good
English university might lead people to infer otherwise.
The Department of Philosophy at Liverpool University does *not* have an
Anthony McWatt on its staff. They do have a student there called Anthony
McWatt and he has spent the greater part of the last decade studying for
a PhD. At the 'University of Liverpool Centre for Continuing Education',
anyone can enrol on an evening course for a small fee. The diversity is
immense and hugely creditable. There are classes on 'Classic Albums of
the '60's', 'Greek for Your Vacation', 'Mosses Made Easy', 'An
Introduction to Psychodrama' and 'Crimes of Violence in Cheshire
1600-1800'. You can also sign up for a course on ZAMM, which lasts for
10 weeks and involves one evening, two hours per week. This is the one
Anthony takes.
Concluding thoughts :-)
1) Anthony uses the age-old fraudster's trick of writing off good
argument by simply dismissing the author as not having the 'right'
perspective.
2) He uses the mythical 'catch-all' SOM to write off anything he
dislikes, as if this somehow even addresses the points made.
3) He claims that Pirsig has an original view of the ontological primacy
of value. He does not and to claim that he does is risible.
4) He confuses his own lack of understanding of scientists, for
scientists' lack of understanding of science.
5) The implication that he is speaking from some position of authority
is at best misleading.
6) I think all this must stem from the fact that, as yet, Anthony has
not made the perceptual shift from the moq to the genuine scholarship
that academic philosophers have. Anthony's essay immediately shows the
differences between the two traditions. (Yes that is sarcasm - sorry -
see point 1)
Struan
-------------------
Struan Hellier
struan@clara.co.uk
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