Pirsig writes philosophy and as far as I can judge I has fund something new
(more on this later.
Much philosophical work since WW1 has been about putting old philosophy on
the head. Wittgenstein in many ways says that much philosophy is just word
play an that many things that seems to be problems is actually just
misunderstanding or taking what somebody wrote as a truth. Very much of
today's philosophy (Putnam, Quine, Searle, Rorty) is about that. In "The
Rediscovery of mind" Searle says that Descartes made a giant mistake (I seem
to remember to have read I similar point of view in a book about motorcycle
maintenance !!) in separating the mind from the body.
Pirsig great contribution is for me not MOQ but rather putting Quality in
the centre and claiming that Quality is NOT subjective. This is something
that I always have in the back of my head when I read philosophy and that
notion quite often help to make sense of what I reed. Quality might not be a
noon strictly speaking that sentence is a simplification that might lead
astray. BUT Quality is OBJECTIVE it does exist !! Much of today's philosophy
desperately NEEDS Quality and we could find a ontological definition of
quality we would solve huge problems.
How do we now that quality is real ?
Example: Someone is sick. We all say that healthy is BETTER than sick. Why
?? Because a person functions BETTER when healthy then when sick.
My point is that at the bottom of every choice we make, we do what we do
because we believe that on action is BETTER than a other. Even scientist
choose the BEST solution to the problem first. JUST BECAUSE ITS BETTER !!
Even evolution chooses the BEST option, The fittest (BEST) survive !!
Try for you're self to explain why its preferable to be healthy rather than
sick. Take each argument and ask your self why that state is preferable to
an other without using words like BETTER, OF HIGHER QUALITY and other words
describing why some things are good and other things bad. At the bottom of
everything is the property to see good from bad and that is NOT subjective
!!
Pirsigs writing are philosophical just like Sartre and Kirkegaard. It is as
valuable as Wittgenstein and Russel but Pirsig have chosen a different way
of expressing himself. I think that he made a smart move if he would have
written like Quine or Searle, so to say from within the tradition, many of
us would NEVER have read his ideas and quite few established philosophers
would have tried to make him look ridiculous since he so far from the
tradition. He would also have had to read thousands of books in traditional
philosophy instead of thinking freely and had he chosen that path he might
never had any good ideas at all.
There is a lot more to say, later.
Best regards to all,
Anders
-----Original Message-----
From: jc [mailto:jc@ridgetelnet.com]
Sent: den 19 oktober 1999 00:30
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: (Fwd) MD Putnam's Values
Pardon me for jumping in so soon - I only joined this list today - but I
feel like I've been bottled up for a long time - having read ZMM in 1981
and bursting to discuss it ever since. I was so eager to get my hands on
Lila that I actaullly went and bought it hardcove. So
forgive any newbie ignornaance as I leap into the fray. Cheers to all and
glad to be here!
On Mon, 18 Oct 1999, David L Thomas wrote:
(snip)
> That being said and understanding that this site is dedicated to the
> discussion of Pirsig's work; How does it futher the understanding of his
work
> to isolate his work from all other philosophy? Are we to claim that the
MoQ
> was created by "divine intervention" or that Pirsig's work appeared on a
> "blank slate" with no influence from prior philosophies? We know from his
> writing that many, if not most, of those ten-jillion slips were references
to
> other peoples work that he read extensively in preparation for writing.
>
> Platt, I believe you would agree that is reasonable to say that the MoQ is
> moral or meta-ethical philosophy. So let's ask a moral question.
I don't know Platt and I certainly don't know any professional
philosophers personally, but it seemed pretty obvious to *my* reading of
the two books that MoQ is not a philosophy. How could it be? Note the
name "Metaphysics of Quality" - as opposed to "Philosophy of Quality".
Koan for the day: If it was possible to have a philosophy of quality, by
what would we judge it?
I would have thought that the whole centerpiece of MoQ is that value is
primary.
> Is it ethical to write philosophy and publish it in the guise of novels?
Begging the assertion that MoQ is a philosophy - isn't Philosophy
basically the invention of a character in a novel by Plato?
Pirsig's work isn't determined by where the book clerk in Borders places
it (yup, I've certainly found it in the Automotive Section) where it
belongs is determined by what it says. Any words that question the
basis of existence are usually termed "Philosophy". No matter how
those words are transported, packaged or categorized.
> Here are the patterns of value we need to morally adjudicate.
>
> 1. The cards are stacked against him,
> 2. He refused to "play the game"
> 3. Wrote two books that were published, promoted, and can be read as
"novels"
> 4. He defends his work, in part, as original, serious, philosophy.
>
> But the kicker is this approach avoids the need to accredit any sources.
After
> all it's only FICTION!
>
> The criteria we would like it to meet is "If everybody did this would the
> world be a better place."
>
> DLT
I can agree with your first three statement. I don't know what you mean
by moral adjudication. Pardon me if I make a hasty judgement here, but
your whole message seems imbued with a moral tone (disaproving of "novel"
and FICTION!) carries a whiff of somebody upset about the overturning of
the moral order. I think I can understand that. In fact, a great deal of
Lila seems to be a resonse to this victorian antiphathy to MoQ. I believe
since the author himself addressed this conflict extinsively, nobody would
gain by my feeble reiteration, except I'll tap into my Libra need for
balance and commiserate a bit...
Pirsig is unfair. He actually didn't invent any interesting new
philosophy which we can compare with our old philosophy. He offered us no
advancement in Philosophy. Instead he introduced a dead end to
philosophy - sort of tricky philosophical jiu-jitsu
that overthrows all philosophical positions held. For whether or not
any philosophy is "good" You can't judge "good" by anything else.
So what the heck do you guys usually talk about anyway?
jc
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