From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 05 2003 - 05:25:40 GMT
All,
In trying to further refine the differences between my interpretation of
Pirsig and others I would like to offer this description of the difference
between Quality in ZMM, on the one hand, and the Metaphysics of Quality in
Lila, on the other.
I think Bruce Charlton (in his essay, on the website, "A Philosophical
Novel: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") correctly identifies a
strain of post-metaphysical thinking in ZMM. I think he's write to put
Pirsig in the pragmatist tradition with James, Dewey, and Rorty. But just
as acute is his observation that, after seeming to eschew metaphysics,
"even Pirsig does not entirely avoid metaphysical thinking. In talking
about Quality, he is almost irresistibly tempted into the business of
defining Quality." I think he's right, the strain to make Quality
metaphysical appears in ZMM, before his follow-through in Lila. However,
because of the appearance of Lila, I think it is easy to still interpret
ZMM as post-metaphysical, while leaving the MoQ in Lila to its own devices.
Charlton interprets ZMM as pragmatic philosophy and I follow him in
thinking that Lila is something completely other than pragmatism. The turn
back towards the metaphysical is the turn away from James.
I think the difference between Quality and the MoQ can be summed up by
comparing them to Derrida's neologism "logocentrism." Logocentrism is the
type of philosophy where some term is central, some term is originary, some
term has everything emmanating out from it. Logocentrism also leans
heavily on the play between two binary oppositions. One opposition is
always priveleged over the other, either analogized as at the center with
the other at the margins in a horizontal manner (like the sun with the
earth revolving around it) or as above the other in a vertical manner.
Clearly the Metaphysics of Quality fit into Derrida's sights. Everything
emmants from Quality, Quality is from where everything originates, it is
the central term. There is a binary opposition, too. Dynamic Quality is
the priveleged term, always pulling static quality up, further and further
upward. (There is an alternate conception that could save the MoQ from
some of Derrida's criticisms (naturally, only if it is concurrently not
pictured as metaphysical). We could interpret the MoQ as having static
quality at the center and Dynamic Quality at the margins, always pulling at
static quality's stubborness, pulling it somewhere it doesn't want to go.
Because of the usual interpretations of logocentrism, this would link DQ
with metaphor and irrationality, which I have commented upon elsewhere.)
Quality, in both ZMM and Lila, I think, can be saved, though maybe not the
Metaphysics of Quality. The key is to not think of it as metaphysical.
When Charlton says, "Pirsig is coming close ... to stating that this
'pre-intellectual awareness' (value) [Quality] is Reality (with a capital
R)," I think his fear is correct if we assume that this is a metaphysical
reality. I think we can call Quality reality in a trivial sense that
simply makes it synonymous with our environment, something pragmatists
don't doubt the existence of. If we make Quality reality in a trivial
sense, that means we _can_ still redescribe material things in terms of
value just as Pirsig does in Lila. But we don't have to. As pragmatists,
we don't want to say that reality, our environment, _really_ is this or
that. We do, however, enjoy redescribing things in many different ways and
Pirsig provides a very creative example, particularly with his
"preconditional valuation" (from Ch 8 of Lila). From these redescriptions
we can learn different things. From Pirsig's, we can see that we can
describe pretty much anything as having intentionality. Whether we might
want to save such intentionality for just humans, or at least animals, is
another question. But its the fact that Pirsig does perform this
redescription and remarks, "saying that a Metaphysics of Quality is false
and a subject-object metaphysics true is like saying that rectangular
coordinates are true and polar coordinates false." As good pragmatists, we
need to find the better description. Pirsig's redescription is in the face
of scientism like logical positivism which wants to make everything a
science, everything mechanistic in order for it to be legitimate. Pirsig,
as a good redescriptive, pragmatist, shows that we could just as easily
make everything intentional, rather than mechanistic.
In summary, I think it is best to put metaphysics aside. I think it is
best to leave Quality a metaphor i.e. undefined. However, I also think
that in doing this we can use it to redescribe our environment in
interesting ways, without accidently reifying it.
Matt
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