From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 10 2002 - 02:10:55 GMT
Wim,
You said:
Philosophy and philosophology relate to each other NOT as good and evil,
BUT as Dynamic Quality and static quality.
Matt:
That's an excellent point, and one I forgot about. However, I don't think
that's the picture drawn by Pirsig. On a practical level, he draws a
picture in which there is no philosophy occuring, and I think this
overstates the case (by a longshot). On a theoretical level, I think his
distinction is incoherent. You can't just come up with a philosophical
treatise on a mountain by yourself, without ever having read anything (in
my caricature of his position).
As a way of reading Pirsig's distinction to rehabiliate it, I think linking
philosophy with DQ and philosophology with static quality is not a bad
idea. However, even after doing this and still sticking with Pirsig's
original picture, I don't think philosophy done up on a mountain will
necessarily be good philosophy. In fact, I think the odds are against it.
As an analogy, if a monkey Dynamically evolves into a human, we'll give it
a, "Well done, old chap," followed by a, "Welcome to the club," because
we've already done it. The newness of being human has worn off. Platt
uses the image of the silliness of re-inventing the wheel and I think that
fits here. If somebody came along and, having never read or heard of Kant,
recapitulates a large part of the Kantian program without adding anything
new, Kantian philosophers, and especially POST-Kantian philosophers, would
be inclined to say, "Yeah.... Ya' see, we already have a Kant, so...
thanks anyways."
Now, granted, this paints a positivistic portrait of philosophy, one I
would normally shrink away from, but I think the main problem with
positivism isn't its progressivism, but its pretentions about having found
the way towards Truth. In this way, I think the best philosophy is
philosophy that moves on from the philosophy of its day. Following Hegel,
after having "held your time in thought" you move towards something even
better and previously unimaginable. This is also the symbol of the
Dynamic-static relation. So, I think the Dynamic-static link with
philosophy-philosophology is a good move to make, but I think you have to
be prepared to gloss over some of the things Pirsig says, particuarly about
there being no philosophers anymore. I think it would be best to chalk up
the philosophical null-class to rhetorical overkill.
Matt
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