Dear Davor,
I wrote 30/3 16:20 +0100:
'For the first time in metaphysical history direct experience gets [from the
Quality Metaphysics] the status of "Reality" (even if shared with static
quality)!'
You replied 3/4 10:41 +0100:
'William James' Radical Empiricism is based on direct experience being
reality'.
You are right. Pirsig traces his ideas in chapter 29 of 'Lila' back to those
of James:
'The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of
twentieth-century American philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of
instrumentalism, which says the test; of the true is the good. It adds that
this good is not a social code or some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute.
It is direct everyday experience. Through this identification of pure value
with pure experience, the Metaphysics of Quality paves the way for an
enlarged way of looking at experience which can resolve all sorts of
anomalies that traditional empiricism has not been able to cope with.'
But 'what the Metaphysics of Quality adds to James's pragmatism and his
radical empiricism is the idea that the primal reality from which subjects
and objects spring is value. By doing so it seems to unite pragmatism and
radical empiricism into a single fabric.'
I'm fine with the idea that Quality Metaphysics started with James instead
of Pirsig. It doesn't change my argument.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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