3WD,
Wow. That's balls. I'da never have thought to actually e-mail Rorty directly.
As it happens I've been reading nothing else but Rorty and
Rorty-related-material of late (to the detriment of my classes;-), but the
conclusion I am being pushed towards is that Rorty and Pirsig do not cohere
very well. You can glue them together, but, when you take the pure strain of
both, the fit works about as well as oil and water.
I've been gearing up for some extend essays on the matter, but if you want the
short of why I think so, I would point you towards Rorty's essay "Philosophy as
a Kind of Writing" (in Consequences of Pragmatism). The essay, I believe, is a
fairly integral peice of Rorty's position and, while mostly on Derrida (a
"strong misreading" of Derrida), it brings up Rorty's Kantian vs. post-Kantian
distinction. Kantian's are foundationalists, post-K's are not. Post-K can
also be linked to many sorts of Postmodernism (as Rorty can, depending on who
you ask). The point is that Pirsig's critique of reason (which is most of ZMM
and a few parts of Lila) sounds like Rorty and Neitzsche and Derrida and many,
many others. Pirsig, when talking like this, fits very well into the mold of
Post-Kantians, which Rorty would applaud. But then when Pirsig starts talking
about the Metaphysics of Quality (which is a few parts of ZMM and almost all of
Lila) he sounds like Kant and the foundationalists. Rorty wants us to talk
like a post-Kantian with none of the Kantian desire for grounding out all of
the talk in a foundation.
When reading Rorty's essays, half the time I'm going "Yah, that can fit with
Pirsig" and the other half I'm going, "Ah, no, maybe not." What's worse is
that when you start to really dig into the Metaphysics of Quality it starts to
look more and more Kantian. Some of Pirsig's most important moves in setting
up the MoQ are almost mirror images of the moves Kant made.
While that makes for an impentrable metaphysics and foundation, Rorty wants to
know why we need to continue with the fashioning of systems and foundations.
On the plus side, much of Rorty's philosophy is in a pluralistic vein. The
goal of philosophy (and the like) is "self-assertion". That's part of his
Jamesian/Deweyan pragmatism. Though Pirsig may not be "on the same wavelength"
as Rorty (or vice versa), as far as I can tell, Pirsig's post-Kantian critique
of reason and cultural criticism is right on the money as "good"
self-assertion. On the other hand, the MoQ, not so much ....
That's the dilemma. But I'll tell ya', Rorty's helped me come to a much
clearer understanding of Pirsig.
Matt
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