From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jan 09 2005 - 20:10:39 GMT
Hello all,
I think Sam is doing some very important work in relation to mysticism. I
think his strides to rehabilitate the notion of mysticism sans the
philosophically suspect concept of "experience" is much needed, particularly
for our interpretations of Pirsig's work. And I think his archeaology of
the conceptual machinery at work in Pirsig's mysticism is a much needed step
in the right direction.
Sam sent me an advance copy of his essay, for which I was very thankful. In
my reply to him, though, I warned Sam that the very end of his essay, where
he says, "Pirsig's work - probably via William James - has inherited a
conceptual shape from Schleiermacher," despite the caveat directly before
("this is not to suggest a direct borrowing"), might create a misdirected
backlash. I think that this is what we are seeing. The importance of Sam's
suggestive genealogy is not biographical, is not primarily concerned with
finding the direct transference of doctrines. It was in creating a
conceptual milieu, a large expansive background against which Pirsig grew
out of, much like Pirsig's genealogy of SOM.
Paul's dismissive denials of Pirsig's involvement with Kantian problems I
think hinge on calling Sam out on a largely misplaced genetic fallacy. But
like I said, I think this misses the brunt of the suggestion. In his essay,
Sam largely spent his time suggesting that Pirsig has inheirited Kantian
baggage and laying out the (very suggestive) apparatus that should look very
familiar to people who have read and absorbed ZMM and Lila. What Sam didn't
do is provide much argumentation for his suggestion. Sam was more providing
a "prolegomena to a future critique." This might be why Paul's reply mainly
consisted in denials, but this is certainly not to say that the
argumentation does not exist. I would like to supply some of this
argumentation, most of which I think Sam would be sympathetic with. Not to
tag myself in, but with Sam suffering from the flu and a "holiday" (christ,
how many "holidays" do you Europeans take a year? seems like you're all
always on holiday), I would like to get the dialogue started on the right
foot.
As I've said, I think Paul's reply consisted mainly in denials of Pirsig's
involvement in Kantian problems. To me, this all reminds me of a far off
debate I was engaged in with DMB. DMB suggested that my critiques of
Pirsigian mysticism (which parrallel Sam's) completely missed the boat
because mysticism has nothing to do with epistemology. I read Paul's reply
as amounting to the same thing. Mysticism has nothing to do with
epistemology, so it has nothing to do with Descartes or Kant or anything
else like it in the West. At the time of my debate with DMB, Sam rejoined
to DMB that, though mysticism may not be epistemology, it may have
epistemological consequences, i.e., the _claims_ made on behalf of mysticism
may have epistemological status. I think this is right and I see the
continued denials that Pirsigian philosophy runs into the problems of the
West as denials that Pirsig has to do epistemology, as denying that he has
to answer the skeptic. But as long as Pirsig's philosophy maintains a
traditional metaphysical dichotomy, that between appearance and reality, he
has to answer the skeptic, and so is forced into the Kantian problematic.
Naturally, the denial of having to answer the skeptic, though, is only the
first step of denial. The second step is to then deny that Pirsig maintains
an appearance/reality distinction. It is these twin denials that I think
facile and for which I will run through my long standing argument.
As Sam said, this all revolves around the notion of "pure experience."
"Pure experience," or "unmediated experience," is unintelligible without its
counterpart "unpure experience," or "mediated experience." The distinction
between unmediated and mediated experience is Pirsig's distinction between
Dynamic and static Quality and it is also the distinction that has
traditionally been used to describe the appearance/reality distinction. I
have been told time and time again that this distinction is _descriptive_
and not normative, unlike the appearance/reality distinction, and so does
not need an epistemology. This line of defense is essentially what all the
other particular ones boil down to, but it will not work because Pirsig
himself dissolves the distinction between descriptive and normative uses by
saying that "values are reality." He is in effect saying that all
descriptions are normative.
To see this more specifically in Pirsig's work, we should first look at
Pirsig's description of evolution as the "migration of static patterns
towards Dynamic Quality." (I must apologize to everyone because I will not
be able give citations or direct quotes (I am without my materials). I
deplore this sloppiness as much as anyone, particularly when attempting to
do what I am trying to do, but I can only tell people to remind me to find
particular passages I'm thinking of that you can't find and for people to
keep their eyes open for misquotes that might have interpretive
consequences. I'm quoting and alluding to passages from memory, so I can't
be postive on fidelity.) Pirsig says that the MoQ identifies the undefined
"betterness" inherent in evolution's description of "survival of the
fittest" with DQ. DQ is "better" than static patterns. DQ is "more moral"
than static patterns. It might be replied that Pirsig's metaphysical
apparatus is simply supplying us with interpretive categories, a set of
glasses to see the world or a set of boxes within which we can stick stuff
to make sense of the world. But again, this won't work as a rejoinder
because Pirsig isn't simply supplying us with a set of neutral glasses to
see stuff or boxes to stick stuff. Pirsig uses his metaphysical apparatus
to _justify_ certain normative decisions. For instance, his claim that it
is moral to kill germs because we are further along the evolutionary track.
In other words, our static patterns are more evolved, closer to Dynamic
Quality, i.e., we are better than the germs.
This claim that some things (like ideas, human rights, capitalism) are
closer to Dynamic Quality, or more Dynamic, than other things _and therefore
better_ is the exact claim of the appearance/reality distinction. Some
things are closer to reality than other things, which are mere apperances.
This claim draws us into epistemology because when you say that, e.g.,
capitalism is more Dynamic than communism, the skeptic raises his hand and
says, "How do you know?" The traditional Pirsigian answer has been "Because
it's better" which amounts to "Because it is, because you just know it when
you experience it." But this isn't an answer, it is a refusal to answer
because the skeptic can keep asking, "How? How? Why? Why?" To draw the
connection between appearance/reality and static/Dynamic even tighter, I
would point out two things. First, unmediated, pure experience is
consistently aligned with _both_ Dynamic Quality, one half of the first cut
of reality, and Quality, the monistic reality that sits behind the first
distinction. And second, that mysticism in general identifies the mediation
between us and reality as language. In Pirsigian philosophy, language is a
static pattern (of some sort) and Dynamic Quality is the "pre-intellectual
edge of experience."
This is why I think there is an appearance/reality distinction at work in
Pirsig, the distinction that Sam is pointing to when he draws his parrallels
between Pirsig and Kant's phenomena/noumena distinction, and why I agree
with Sam that Pirsig doesn't seem to escape the Kantian, SOMic problematic.
So this is the bulk of my argument: To deny the need to do epistemology,
and maintain an appearance/reality distinction, is to regress to a
pre-Cartesian "metaphysical dogmatism" where we simply assert our correct
interpretations of the True Reality without any criteria for success. We
need to realize that even if, for instance, Eastern mysticism developed
independently its own notion of "pure experience," that if the work demanded
of a concept parrallels the work demanded of it elsewhere (or the work
demanded of a concept is the same work demanded of another concept) that the
one tradition has relevant questions and innovations for the other
tradition. And we need to realize that, whatever their faults, Descartes
and Kant were steps _forward_ on the dialectical path that Plato began--if
only because they brought it that much closer to its demise. Epistemology
is the grown up version of Plato's dialectic, his method for ascertaining
Truth. Descartes realized that if epistemology did not come first, all we
have is dogmatic, assertive speculation. After tunneling our way from
Descartes to Hume, Kant heroically "woke from his dogmatic slumbers" and
realized the same thing. If you are going to do metaphysics, you must do
epistemology.
If the denial of epistemology is _not_ a regress, you need to explain why we
need a mediated/unmediated distinction at all. What part does it play, what
work does it do? Sam's attempt to redescribe mysticism without reference to
"experience" and my past attempts to redescribe the notion of Dynamic
Quality as "metaphor" and "compliment" are attempts at rehabilitating
Pirsig's conceptual machinery without the mediated/unmediated distinction.
Because if the distinction plays the part _Pirsig_ wants it to play, an
_explanatory_/_justificatory_ role, then you've blundered into having to
answer the skeptic, and so epistemology, and so the Subject-Object
Metaphysics.
Matt
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