From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 11 2005 - 17:57:13 GMT
Hi Paul,
I'd really like to keep this simple this time. As your "textbook" quip
might partially allude to, in the past, if I have made a name for myself,
then it is for using a lot of words and doing a lot of things all at once.
I pride myself on trying to be thorough and comprehensive and of tying off
as many loose ends, most times before they even appear.
This time I would like to stay focused. I do not want to be distracted by
side issues. I want to finally move this dialogue along because it has been
stalled at this same point for over two years. The many other things that
came up in your comments, Sam's essay (what you call his "argument" and what
I term his "suggestive genealogy"), the connections between East and West (I
never denied the sword cuts both ways), Northrup, Kant, etc., I will pass
over for now.
I think the main thing hindering us is the language we are using, between
ambivalancy and the like. What I (and Sam) am concerned with is not the
particular _words_ or _concepts_ Pirsig uses, but the _work_ being done with
them. The work done by our words and concepts is how we determine how we
translate words from one language to another, from one philosopher's jargon
to another's. If we use two different concepts to get the same work done,
then our dispute is verbal and uninteresting. As they say colloquially,
"Ah, semantics!" At root, I wouldn't care less if Pirsig called his
philosophy the "Metaphysics of Quality" or said he did epistemology or said
there was a gigantic gulf between us and reality when we use language--_if_
the consequences of his philosophy did not land him in traditional, old
school philosophical problems, problems that can be avoided.
So, for the time being, I'm willing to give up the distinction between
appearance and reality. I'm willing to give up the words metaphysics and
epistemology.
This is the nitty gritty:
If Quality is reality
And Quality is experience
Then experience is reality.
If static patterns are mediated reality
And Dynamic Quality is unmediated reality
And Dynamic Quality is better than static patterns
Then unmediated reality is better than mediated reality.
If unmediated reality is better than mediated reality, then how do we know
when we are apprehending unmediated reality?
How do we know when we are Dynamic, when we are following Dynamic Quality?
How do you establish criteria for determining which is which, criteria that
will satisfy the skeptic?
How do you answer the skeptic?
When your comments do stray over the area of conversation I would like to
pursue, I want a more detailed answer of how you think Pirsig's philosophy
copes. At one point you don't seem to take the skeptic very seriously
("Good for him, let this hypothetical skeptic keep asking"), but the problem
is that _I_ will play the part of the skeptic so long as one asks the types
of questions I think give life to him. So why don't you think _I_ need an
answer?
The trick is, I think about half of Pirsig denies any attempt to give the
skeptic an answer (and there are plenty of ways in Pirsig which suggest that
we don't have to answer him), but its the other half that bothers me: the
half that seems to demand the raising of the question. People love quoting
Pirsig at me, but the parts they quote are typically the unproblematic
parts, the parts that I already like. What about the quotes I pick out, the
parts I see as problems? How does this all hang together? How does it
_work_?
Why does Pirsig not need to answer the skeptic when the determination of
good and evil, better and worse, hinges on distinguishing between static
patterns and Dynamic Quality?
Matt
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