Matt,
While I acknowledge that Pirsig admits to indulging himself by pursuing
metaphysics, I think he is justified in his pursuit, and in fact,
*should* be seeing his metaphysical presentation as the moral thing to
do. Thus I disagree with your first objection:"1) His predeliction
towards metaphysics"
The reason for my disagreement is that I think Rorty is being
disingenuous with his "Religion is a conversation-stopper". Of course it
is if one thinks about trying to argue with a fundamentalist, but there
are many (like me) who have come to religion rationally, or have
subjected their religious beliefs to thorough rational scrutiny. This
does not mean that they think they can prove their religion to be
correct, but that they find there is sufficient evidence and reason to
maintain their faith.
Rorty, on the other hand, is a secularist, and also thinks there is
sufficient evidence and reason to maintain his faith. But by claiming
that "religion is a conversation-stopper" he is, by fiat, ruling me and
many others out of the conversation, telling us that our sufficient
evidence and reason doesn't count, while his does. You will note that in
all his philosophical argument, he is arguing with other secularists
(like John Searle and Thomas Nagel), while people with a more-or-less
religious stance (like Wilber) are simply ignored. Pirsig can be
dismissed because (and I think correctly from Rorty's point of view),
Quality is "merely" a non-explanatory substitute for God.
The reason for my objecting to your second objection ("(2) He attempts
to hold private obsession and desire for public good in one vision") is
that many, if not all, of our public disagreements have their basis in
our different metaphysical stances. If Pirsig does not make his
"obsession" public, he undercuts his reasons for public stances (like
defense for rights). We all act according to our metaphysical stance,
and we all have one (an agnostic is a de facto secularist). So, if we
are intellectually inclined, it is disingenuous to argue for one
position or another without making our ultimate reasons for it as
clearly as we can.
I do think that Pirsig's metaphysics, and religious stances in general,
need the challenge of post-modern criticism. As I've mentioned before, I
think one author who has met this challenge is Robert Magliola, in
"Derrida on the Mend". The result is definitely not any old-time
metaphysics.
- Scott
Matt the Enraged Endorphin wrote:
> Sam,
>
>
>>My view - and I think Matt's view - is that Pirsig declines to go down this
>>route in ZMM, but indulges in it, whilst admitting that it is degenerate,
>>because it is 'fun', in Lila.
>>
>
> Indeed, this is my view. There are in fact many ways to go at the
> differences in ZMM and Lila, as you can imagine. Rorty offers and points
> in the direction of a host of some the subtle twists of the analytic knife
> that can leave both books lying split open: edifying v. systematic,
> Rortyan v. Kantian, Rortyan v. Platonist, Rortyan v. Cartesian, nominalist
> v. essentialist, ironists v. metaphysicians, Culture Critic v. Professional
> Philosopher, rhetorician v. dialectician, Russell/Husserlian v.
> Wittgenstein/Nietzschean, etc. I've mentioned some of these before and
> some examples of them and will hopefully pursue some of them more
> explicitly soon. All of them are partially defined by their opposite. (If
> I forget, or one of these catches anybody's eye, prompt me and I can flesh
> them out for discussion.)
>
> If I were to pressed to say what I find to be Pirsig's mistakes in ZMM and
> Lila, there would be two: 1) His predeliction towards metaphysics and 2) He
> attempts to hold private obsession and desire for public good in one
> vision. Rorty helps, in my opinion, overcome both of these. His
> metaphysics predeliction gets him into a lot of easily ignored trouble (my
> efforts to historicize and pragmatize Pirsig are in this vein), but its the
> second one that contributes the most lasting nuisance. The two problems
> overlap heavily, but its his Herculean effort at turning his Quality
> insight into a solution of the world's problems that causes the most
> trouble (particularly considering we have such trouble here deciding what
> the Quality insight "really" is and means).
>
> I think Quality metaphysics should stay in the realm of private obsession.
> Rorty's argument is that when you are making useful suggestions for the
> public realm, you can cut off the theoretical underpinnings. A useful
> suggestion is then judged according to its usefulness, rather than any of
> the theoretics that led you to such a belief and suggestion. In "Religion
> As Conversation-stopper," Rorty uses the example of religion as a private
> practice that should remain in private. The same can applied to other
> types of private routes to self-perfection, up to and including
> metaphysics. In this essay, Rorty says, "the epistemology suitable for
> such a democracy is one in which the only test of a political proposal is
> its ability to gain assent from people who retain radically diverse ideas
> about the point and meaning of life, abou the path to private perfection.
> The more such consensus becomes the test of a belief, the less important is
> the belief's source. So when [Stephen L.] Carter complains that religious
> citizens are forced 'to restructure their arguments in purely secular terms
> before they can be presented' [from The Culture of Disbelief: How American
> Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion], I should reply that
> 'restructuring the arguments in purely secular terms' just means 'dropping
> reference to the source of the premises of the arguments', and that this
> omission seems a reasonable price for religious liberty."
>
> We should read this as private liberty. Pirsig's route to private
> perfection is metaphysics and Quality. This leads him to some very good
> suggestions, like the teaching and university sections in ZMM, which are,
> as a future teacher, still my favorite sections. I think he's dead on, but
> if one were to disagree with Quality, one could still agree with his
> suggestions.
>
> Matt
>
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