Bo,
I couldn't help but smile through most of your message. Your
incorrigibility is impressive. My only wish is to have been a bit more
persuasive.
Alas, though, one of my many flaws is the dismay I feel at being
misunderstood. Naturally, this is, perhaps, part and parcel with being
redescribed.
Bo: "Everybody seem[s] to read books and then return to the forum insisting
that the MOQ is to be seen through the eyes of the last read author."
Though redescription is impossible to circumvent (heh, catch the irony
there), I will object to this forced redescription. The intent is to
redescribe me as someone who wants to force everyone to see the real,
ultimate, Platonic Truth (capital "T" and all). This, I feel, is fairly
unjustified considering everything I have said. In the original
"Confessions" post I said: "... I've been reading a lot of Rorty lately and
I've finally come to a realization: Pirsig was doing to me what Plato did
to Pirsig. For Pirsig, Plato created the Western philosophical nightmare
called Professional Philosophy, amongst other things. But through Rorty's
eyes I'm finding that Pirsig is attempting the same thing, rather than
really fundamentally changing anything. To turn Pirsig's eloquent phrase
back on him, the halo is gone from Pirsig's head. This is not to say that
I'm still not an avid Pirsig supporter. But I'm finding
that the better parts of Pirsig are to be found in ZMM, not Lila. What
Rorty has given me is the tools necessary to see and to enunciate what I've
disliked about Pirsig, without throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
And though Rorty gave Pirsig the short shrift, I implore you not to do the
same to Rorty. Rorty has a lot to offer Pirsig and vice versa."
In particular, "This is not to say that I'm still not an avid Pirsig
supporter," "without throwing out the baby with the bathwater," and "Rorty
has a lot to offer Pirsig and vice versa," which implies that Pirsig has a
lot to offer Rorty. I can see how you might think I would demand everyone
to read Rorty if they are truly to understand Pirsig. However, that would
undermine my own project, namely: "...the feeling that people need to reach
their own conclusions, work through their own problems, think it through
themselves, etc. This philosophical individualism finds voice in the
incorrigibility of a persons final vocabulary. If a person cannot be forced
by Reason into a new belief, [which they cannot] then they must be
persuaded to think it through themselves." Part of being a nominalist is
the realization that words are but tools and people can (and must) find
their own tools. I use some Rorty's. I also use some of Pirsig's. But
part of being an ironist is being able to rearrange your toolbox when you
find something useful.
Bo: "I repeat that "objectivity" alone isn't Intellect, yet your
formulation ..."calls for logical argument? Who doesn't? Above you used
"rational argument" and I like that one better, as said the MOQ is "out of
Intellect" and will (have to) use its rationality, but under its own control."
I do use "logic," "rational," and "reason" all fairly interchangably,
though I wouldn't presume to think that everyone does or force everyone to
do so. However, you asked who doesn't call for logical argument: I for
one. Rorty for two. And the early Pirsig in ZMM for three. All of this
is still sitting outlined in the original "Confessions" post.
To add something of substance here, I would pull out Bo's statement
"meeting Pirsig through ZAMM and later LILA and the full-fledged MOQ
brought it all to order inside a new system greater than religion and
science!!" This is where I think Pirsig went wrong. The transition from
ZMM to Lila is Pirsig's transition from edifying philosopher to systematic
philosopher (not that he didn't show tendencies of both in both books).
Pirsig created some very helpful tools in ZMM including "Quality," the
"romantic/classical" division, and the "Church of Reason," among others.
In Lila, however, Pirsig moved from trying to dissolve the Kantian value
spheres (Art, Science, and Morality) to trying to re-systematize them or,
as Bo says, "brought it all to order inside a new system greater than
religion and science!!" Pirsig, in Lila, attempts to repudiate the Kantian
system of philosophy all the while continuing the Kantian project of
systematizing.
In fact, Pirsig's ambivalent relation to Kant is possibly one of the most
interesting facets about Pirsig's thought. We find Pirsig openly borrowing
some of Kant's tools and making some of the same fundamental moves as the
master chess player. (Its worth pointing out at least one: Kant's first
cut of Reality is between phenomena and noumena. Phenomena was the
definable stuff science was interested. Noumena is undefinable. Sound
familiar?) And yet, at least in ZMM, Pirsig's project is almost entirely
anti-Kantian. Essentially, what I want to say is that Pirsig is being a
good philosopher when he is edifying and recontextualizing, not when he's
systematic and logically arguing. Pirsig the Rhetorician and Cultural
Critic, not Pirsig the Platonic Dialectician.
Matt
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