From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 07 2002 - 01:39:15 BST
Sam, others,
As I mentioned to John in another thread, the onslaught is unbearable, so
I'm picking and choosing my battles.
Sam, this is a very insightful installation. I like it. It offers a good
contrast the position I was developing, that Pirsig in Lila would condemn
the Pirsig of ZMM. It particular, it offers up some very good quotes where
Pirsig seems to be eschewing universal truth.
Your critique of me:
MATT:
"The one thing I want everyone to understand is that I don't think that my
"historicized" Pirsig is the "true" Pirsig. To search for a "true" Pirsig
is to misunderstand the purpose of reading. There isn't a "true" Pirsig
hidden in the pages of his books."
"I think the penchant for acting as the voice of Pirsig that many
conversants in the MD display is a reflection of their belief that there is
a True reading of Pirsig that can and will be someday explicated. I,
however, don't believe this."
SAM:
I think Matt is confusing a notion of 'absolute Truth' (which is
Redemptive, and which all of Pirsig, Rorty, Wittgenstein and many others
reject) with the idea of an accurate articulation of the authorial
viewpoint. It seems to me that Pirsig wished to communicate certain ideas in
his writings, and that it is therefore possible to have more or less
accurate accounts of those ideas (and thereby to talk as if there IS a true
account of what Pirsig is saying). To deny this is ultimately to deny any
possibility of communication between different individuals, and is an
argument that stands in close relation to the 'private language' argument
that Wittgenstein deconstructs in his Investigations. In contrast to the
post-modernists I do think there is such a thing as an authorial voice, and
that it can be - more or less adequately - recovered.
However, what I think the underlying point Matt is getting at is valid -
that there is a tendency in the forum to treat Pirsig as a writer of gospel
truth, so that if we can recover what he actually said, argument is at an
end. If we recover what Pirsig meant, then we then have to make a judgement
as to its value; our thinking doesn't end there.
MATT:
It is certainly valid to point out this seeming confusion. However, its
when I say things like, "in constructing an accurate portrayal of the
writer's own beliefs, it may be helpful to ask him for clarification," that
makes me think there's more to my position than a simple confusion.
You see, right now I'm trying to show you that you've somehow framed an
inaccurate portrayal of what I wrote. But, in addition, we are both, right
now, interpreting the text I wrote. We both go to it to find the confusion
you elaborated. My point about interpretation is that a text is a static
version of our beliefs, seperate from the beliefs and desires we might
identify as a person's "ego". A text is not us. We must interpret it. As
the postmodern phrase goes, its interpretations, all the way down.
Now, firstly, I do maintain that there is no key to unlock a True
interpretation of Pirsig's (or my) writings. But, secondly, I also
maintain that we use texts as tools for our own purposes. As such, while
an accurate portrayal of a text may be helpful, it may also be the case
that a radical interpretation or "strong misreading" may be better suited
to turn the text into a useful tool. So, when I use ZMM and Lila as a
tool, I use a strong misreading of them because it overcomes the problems
of the text (as I interpret them). A good critique of a strong misreading
would be: 1) to point out that the problems that the interpreter sees in
the text are not really there, and that the interpreter can still use the
text as the tool she wanted it for, even without so strong a misreading or
2) to point out that the misreading has no textual support. Both critiques
are a way of showing that the interpretation the interpreter is offering
isn't very persuasive. As Rorty says, "we pragmatists can view the
imperative to check your interpretation against the text as a coherent
whole simply as a reminder that, if you want to make your interpretation of
a book sound plausible, you cannot just gloss one or two lines or scenes.
You have to say something about what most of the other lines or scenes are
doing there." ("The Pragmatist's Progress: Umberto Eco on Interpretation")
But a strong misreading attempts to use the text to help you say something.
A good strong misreading shows that the text is persuasively used this
way. A bad one does not. So, if I offered an interpretation (somehow)
that Kant was a pragmatist, it might be fairly easy to show that this is a
bad, useless interpretation. But, I would still contend that offering an
interpretation of Pirsig as an historicist is possible and plausible.
So, when Sam says that "To deny [a true account of a text] is ultimately to
deny any possibility of communication between different individuals," I say
that this is a bit dramatic. As I just elaborated to John B. (in the Ways
of Knowing thread), communication for Rorty is a matter of constructing
"passing theories" of other people's noises and inscriptions. The goal is
to be able to predict what the person will say next. In reading a
philosophical text, a goal is to predict what the philosophical text will
say next. What Rorty goes on to say is that there is no difference between
using a text and interpreting it. With this, being able to predict what
the text says is one goal, another is to use it for your own purposes.
I've already dissolved the notion of an "authorial voice" into that of a
"text's voice," but Rorty contends that, since there is no difference
between using and interpreting, a text has no voice, it is simply a tool,
sitting there, waiting to be used.
Matt
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