From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Jan 10 2005 - 02:33:50 GMT
Matt, Paul, Sam and all MOQers:
Matt Kundert said:
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....
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...
dmb replies:
Paul's dismissive denials? On the contrary, Paul's answers were very
concise, but they addressed each of the issues directly - and thanks to the
quotes he's provided we know for sure that Pirsig's rejection of the Kantian
epistemology is quite explicit and overt...
Here is Pirsig in Lila's Child p.348:
"Quality in the MOQ is monistic and thus is not the same as Kant's
"thing in itself" which is the object of a dualism."
Here is Pirsig in a letter to Anthony McWatt:
"Things themselves" is an old subject-object metaphysical presumption.
The MOQ denies there are "things themselves" that are independent of
value. On close scientific examination "things themselves" always turn
out to be a relationship between other things."
dmb continues:
Another mistake is in thinking that Pirsig's rejection of THIS epistemology
somehow constitutes a refusal to have any epistemology at all. Further, the
MOQ is thoroughly empirical. From a Dynamic point of view the MOQ is radical
empiricism. It says that the primary empirical reality is undivided. It is
not a collection of unknown things or an imperfectly understood world of
things in themselves. It is an entirely different concept from Kant's. This
primary empirical reality is experience without things or any other kind of
division. From a static point of view, the MOQ employs what we can call
epistemological pluralism, where we allow different kinds of verifiable
experience. This basically says that we can know things through the senses,
through the mind, and by non-rational or contemplative means. And that
brings us back to that primary empirical reality again. Refuse to do
epistemology? Yea, like a fish refuses to swim. I hope to have time for a
more detailed response, but for now I'll skip the bulk of this message and
move to Matt's concluding comments...
Matt's last paragraph said:
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.
dmb replies:
One of the main reasons for skipping over the bulk of your arguments is that
I think the entire edifice is perched on a misconception, the same
misconception that Sam suffers from. You've both likened Kant's view with
Pirsig's but, as we see in the quotes, the MOQ explicitly rejects that view.
As a result, the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum is confused with SOM's
world of things, which is exactly what it is NOT. Nothingness is
no-thing-ness and how can no thingness be things in themselves. See? Such a
confusion utterly defies the concept of undividness. The primary empirical
reality is experience without subjects or objects, without phenomenea or
nomena. Those are concepts and things and are, by definition, NOT
nothingness, not undivided.
And the reason Pirsig makes the split between static and dynamic, rather
than between subjects and objects or even classic and romantic, is because
the aim of the MOQ is to bring the mystical experience within a metaphysical
frameworlk, which is NOT the case with SOM. SOM, as Pirsig so often reminds
us, can't explain mysticism worth a damn and in fact filter's it out.
Try to imagine a form of consciousness that is not subjective. Try to
imagine thoughts without a thinker and you start to see that the West mind
believes that subjective experience is the only kind and is the basis of all
other knowledge. We believe this so thoroughly that its almost impossible to
imagine consciousness of any other kind. But that's the idea. Immediate
experience is not about a subject in direct contact with an external realm.
Instead, it is the experience before such conceptions occur. Pirsig is not
saying that subjects create concepts about the world, he's saying the
subjective self AND the external world are BOTH intellectual constructs.
See? So the rejection of Kantian epistemolgy is not just explictly stated,
it is an inherent part of the structure of the MOQ. It rejects subjectivity
and objectivity as being primary and gives that role to DQ which precedes
both.
We can understand Pirsig better if we CONTRAST his MOQ with what Kant says,
but otherwise you're reading Pirsig through the very assumptions he's
rejected and its hard to imagine a more certain way to confuse things.
Thanks,
dmb
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