From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 03:33:50 BST
All,
(including Sqounk and others I disagree with)
In the past, I've put forth a thesis that Pirsig can, and should at times,
be seen as a Kantian philosopher. He can be seen following many of the
same metaphysical moves that Kant made. Bo denied this because Kant should
be seen as the primary member of the so-called Subject-Object Metaphysical
club. As Bo saw, by making this claim, I'm making a not-so-tiny indictment
against Pirsig's view of the MoQ as repudiating SOM.
I must confess, in my first readings and exegeses of Pirsig, I was never
very comfortable with what a subject-object metaphysics was supposed to be.
It seemed to be a lot of things to a lot of people. I don't mention
subject-object metaphysics very often in my forum essays, because, other
than a very specific criticism of Sartre as using that splicing of reality,
I'm not sure why so many things fall under the "evil of SOM." SOM for
Pirsig is the heading that many of us (including Pirsig) throw the bad
things we see being done. In this case, it is much like Derrida's
"metaphysics of presence": they are what's been wrong with traditional
philosophy as passed down to us from Plato. I prefer, to these broad
signifiers, Dewey's "whole brood and nest of dualisms" which we inheirited
from Plato. I think that calling each dualism as we see them makes it
easier to tackle them, even when they are tangled together.
I want to sketch for you a short, simplistic narrative of the history of
philosophy. It will be very short, I promise, but I hope it will
contextualize my thoughts about Pirsig.
During the Pre-Socratic period of philosophy, many philosophers were
embroiled in a debate about cosmology and other topics. These were the
first philosophers and they tried to establish the immortal truth about
these things. Thales wanted everything to be reduced to water, Anaximenes
air, Heraclitus flux, Anaxagoras nous, Pythagoras Number, etc. They argued
and argued, but more and more hypotheses were being offered rather than any
particular hypothesis zeroing in on truth.
Plato (who also represents Socrates) entered the scene and seperated true
knowledge from opinion. He established the dialectic as the method with
which we could find the truth. With this sure path towards true knowledge,
he divided Reality into two: the Realm of Ideas (or Forms) and the Realm of
the Senses. This is the first systematic appearence of the
appearence-reality distinction: the Realm of Ideas are real and are our
foundation upon which we have true knowledge. Info we gain from the senses
simply gives us opinions about appearences, rather than penetrating to the
truth. In the inflection I would like to give it, we can see the Realm of
Ideas as being "out there" waiting to be discovered and the Realm of the
Senses as something closer to us, something immediately sensed.
Fastforward many years. Europe's intellectuals are embroiled in a
skeptical crisis, quite reminiscent of the one that raged before Socrates
and Plato. Descartes entered the scene and continued the Greek project of
searching for a foundation for knowledge and truth, though he was one of
the first to dispense with the Greek way of doing philosophy (i.e.
following the direct footsteps of either Plato or Aristotle). The
Rationalists and Empiricists of this time can be seen as trying to fill in
the blanks of what this foundation is. The Rationalists said the
foundation came from reason, but they had a hard time applying the "truths"
they discovered to the world around us. The Empiricists said the
foundation came from our senses. Locke and Berkeley, though, had God on
their side and, essentially, this is what kept the world from falling
apart. Hume, however, stepped up and said, no, we cannot have the
certainty and foundation that the Greeks were looking for. It is not
logical to infer universiality from an empirical experience. Hume, in this
light, is something of a proto-pragmatist.
Right after Hume finishes his attack on the possibility of a foundation,
Kant famously steps in. Kant picks up the project to lay a foundation from
which we can attain absolutely certain, true knowledge. For Kant, the real
world is "out there." Kant makes an inner-outer distinction which is
essentially the subject-object distinction. Objects are "out there" and
when the subject represents the object correctly, then we have true
knowledge. While Kant's arguments for absolute certainty are generally
supposed to have failed, between Kant and the Empiricists, experience of a
real world that is "out there" is solidified as our connection with
Reality. Experience, in some sense, becomes our gateway to a foundation.
This sets the stage for realists, many of whom believe that science is the
great excavator of Truth.
Parallel to this debate in professional philosophy was an increasing
awareness that there were two tracks of life for humans: an inner, moral
track and an outer, material track. The material world is "out there" and
supplies us with food to eat. Morals, on the other hand, are felt in the
heart, inside with our connection to God. We don't experience morals like
rocks. That these two tracks were becoming increasingly divergent was also
becoming more and more important and apparent. While science and economics
helped us get we wanted on the material track, what would help us get what
we wanted on the moral track? Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment helped
solidify the new economics. The bourgeoisification of people made them
more comfortable, eased their material concerns. But what would ease their
moral concerns? Hume suggested that people would just grandually become
more sophisticated and gradually turn their attentions to more "high-minded
pleasures". Rousseau suggested that the sciences were corrupting and that
we turn away from luxury and material things. Benjamin Constant emphasized
the need for a moral education.
Enter Pirsig. We have an outer track and an inner track and never the
twain shall meet. Well, in solving the problem, Pirsig moved everything to
the outer track. He made morals experiential. He saw that the outer track
was where Reality was, where people placed great importance (be it in the
metaphysical sense or economic sense), so he collapsed everything into
Reality. Pirsig usurped the realist answer. By this token, this is the
best way to respond to Struan's charge of the MoQ being idealism (from
December 2001). Its not in this reading. Its a realist hybrid.
So, this is my reading of the MoQ presented by Pirsig: Pirsig believes
he's repudiating subject-object metaphysics, but I find that he is still
caught in it. He follows the Kantian inner-outer distinction, which leads
people to interpret an appearence-reality distinction. Reality is still
"out there." Its just now, morals are "out there."
To support this reading, I draw your attention to the turning point in ZMM:
Ch 19, the subject-object dilemma. Pirsig is very correct in his dianostic
of the problem. In the Platonic tradition, there are two options: out
there in the object, or in here in the subject. Pirsig goes on to give a
pretty good description of what would happen to either of his answers: a
demand for empirical verification or the charge of idealism. Pirsig's
Gestalt switch, his Coperican revolution, is best seen as a redescription
of what is being empirically verified, rather than falling into idealism.
One objection is that Pirsig says, "he rejected the left horn. Quality is
not objective, he said. It doesn't reside in the material world. Then: he
rejected the right horn. Quality is not subjective, he said. It doesn't
reside merely in the mind. And finally: Phaedrus ... said Quality is
neither a part of mind, nor is it a part of matter. It is a third entity
which is independent of the two." This is Pirsig's definitive move away
from SOM. The equivocation that I see is that when Pirsig describes our
relation to Quality it is almost always, "When we experience Quality" or
"Why does everybody see Quality differently?" Pirsig always uses language
in which an ego (or subject) is experiencing reality (or object). There is
still an inner-outer distinction in which reality is still "out there."
I don't think Pirsig sees this because he too hastily assumes that
objective reality in SOM is considered to be material or matter. I don't
think this is an assumption he should make. A realist doesn't assume that
reality is corpusculian, he simply assumes that it is "out there." This
makes more sense, when we contrast the realist with the idealist who thinks
that reality is "in here."
In constrast to Pirsig's solution to the problem of SOM, the metaphysics of
presence, or that whole brood and nest of Greek dualisms, the pragmatist
suggests a rhetorical answer that Pirsig both considers, thinks is the best
stratagem, and others apparently counseled him in doing: refuse to enter
the arena. Following Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dewey, and Wittgenstein, throw
out the tradition of even considering these things as problems. Dissolve
problems by making them disappear, rather than solve problems which gives
them more credence than they deserve.
But Pirsig doesn't do this. In attempting to get people to start to care
about the material realm, in getting them to start to view morals as just
as real and important as motorcycles, Pirsig pushes everything "out there"
into reality.
If I'm right, that in setting up the MoQ Pirsig ressurects the Kantian
inner-outer distinction, then this gives credence to both Platt's
insistence that the MoQ gives us ahistorical, universal truths (because
these truths now correspond correctly to reality) and to Bo's reading of
the MoQ, to his SOLAQI. The question that this reading brings up is how
dedicated you are: do hate SOM more than you hate objective, ahistorical,
universal Truth? If you're like me, you start to read the MoQ like a
pragmatist would. If not, then be prepared to face the problems of
realism, which are much like the problems that Pirsig levels against the
whole scientific establishment. This is the problem of ZMM and Lila: some
of what he writes can be subjected to the same criticisms that he brings up.
I've already devoted a lot of time to bringing out Platt's position to the
MoQ and what the pragmatist says about it. Bo's position, however, is in a
particularly good position to reap the "benefits" of this reading of
Pirsig. If anything, my reading of the MoQ as being a realist position
strengthens Bo's reading of the Intellectual level as Subject-Object
thinking. The MoQ, in this reading ends up squarely in SOMland. In fact,
I think a better description of Bo's reading would be SOMoQ. This brings
out the fact that, in this reading, the subject experiences Quality, which
is all around us "out there," and that this Reality needs to be
corresponded to and the best way that's been devised so far, the one that's
closest to truth so far, is the MoQ. Like science, it has an eraser that
allows us to come closer to truth, but like science's sometimes conception
of itself, eventually we will reach the truth and we will no longer need
the eraser.
This is why there are so many wildly differing readings of Pirsig and the
MoQ: there is ample room for wildly differing readings of the MoQ. Just
like Kant, who can be read as an idealist or a realist, I think Pirsig can
be read as a realist, an idealist, or a pragmatist (or anti-realist). So,
the moral of this story is that, if you are looking for a foundation, a
true, ahistorical MoQ to set your feet upon, you are following in the
footsteps of Kant and a tradition of Platonic dualisms, three of which are
the entangled appearence-reality distinction, the inner-outer distinction,
and the subject-object distinction. If you repudiate the need for
foundations, you are following Dewey and the pragmatists. Both can be
found in Pirsig. The question is, who's side are you on?
------------------
On a more personal note, I think I am going to write one more original post
to this list (an addendum to this one, one in which I hope to discuss a
so-called "science of morals"). I feel the winds have turned on the list
and that few people find what I write useful. My feelings aren't so much
hurt as, rather, I feel as that people like Squonk are speaking for a
majority of the list. Though I think Squonk may be a little more rude than
most would be, I get the feeling that most people would wish that I would
just stop writing. All I can do in response is just shrug my shoulders.
I consider almost all of my discussions here to have been useful,
particularly those with Platt, Bo, Sam, Erin, John, and Scott. Whether
these people consider them fruitful is for them to decide, but I don't
regret writing here, even if Squonk regrets me ever having read ZMM and
Lila (as he seems to regret many others having ever picked up the books).
Though I don't think I'll unsubscribe, I think I'll fade into the
background until the winds pick up a more favorable disposition. In
particular, I think I'll write those essays for the forum I've been meaning
to write.
Thank you all for your time,
Matt
p.s. While I am going to limit myself to one more thread-starting
contribution, I will continue the threads I have open until they peter out.
So, Squonk and others who can't wait, the sooner you stop talking to me,
the sooner I'll go away (as it is with most iconoclasts).
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