From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2005 - 11:30:39 GMT
DMB and all,
I've had to recap on this thread - it's moved on in the few days I've been
offline.
I like your little parable DMB.
I'm reminded of a couple of things relevant here ...
one - the appearance that Einstein blew half his life becuase of his refusal
to believe what he himself had predicted fit with his belief in God.
two - a current furore in Physics whereby papers from unapproved authors /
sources are failing to get distributed to the community.
It is certainly useful and constructive to pay homage to the history of
thought before your own, but that doesn't have to come before your own
thought.
Not being a recognised expert in a field does not in itself invalidate a
contribution - hence blind peer review in many learned journals
Pirsig "knew" something was wrong with scientific "truth" long before he
studied any philsophy, he "knew" Quality, long before he enroled on his
abortive Philosophy PhD, and he "knew" the MoQ before seriously
investigating philosophy beyond the Greeks until after writing ZMM.
What happens is "post-rationalisation" of what is now "known" with what was
previously accepted.
At that point having arguments for or against philosophical viewpoints
certainly benefits from philsophology and a knowledge of history.
It is not however a pre-requisite for a good philosophy (story).
Knowing is more immediate.
Learning "everything" that has gone before is very time consuming, once
you've found what you know.
Ian.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2005 1:56 AM
Subject: RE: MD Them pesky pragmatists
> Paul, Matt & all:
>
> Matt said:
> ..........................................................I would never
> claim that people have to do or understand mainstream philosophy. But
> if you are going to claim Pirsig's superiority to mainstream philosophy,
> it would be nice if it were backed up somehow. My interest in Pirsig is
> in his intersection with the history of philosophy, how Pirsig joins in
> that conversation. But I don't know how to express those thoughts if
> there isn't a general understanding of how the history of philosophy has
> played itself out. (I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert, but I
> am claiming to have a general knowledge of it.) I'm certainly not ending
> the dialogue, I simply want to note my discouragement and frustration.
> I'll keep trying to figure out ways of saying what I want to say, but I
> feel like I'm playing with a handicap.
>
> dmb says:
> I would've imagined a working knowledge of the history of philosophy to be
> a
> blessing, not a curse. I would've imagined such a background would only
> make
> it easier for you to explain things, to have a philosophical conversation.
> Instead, you seem strangley paralyzed by it. It seems that its not your
> fault so much as everyone else's. I appreciate your attempts to soften the
> point, but aren't you basically saying that nobody has the skills to
> justify
> their claims about the MOQ or even the skills to do philosophy at all...
>
> Paul said to Matt:
> ....This justification is achieved by collapsing one side of Pirsig's
> philosophy/philosophology distinction into the other, i.e., one can't
> properly do philosophy without 'philosophology', thus denying the title
> of philosophy to non-academic contemplation and effectively setting up a
> false dichotomy between sophisticated academic philosophers and armchair
> dilettantes, leaving us in no doubt about on which side of this fence
> you reside.
>
> dmb adds:
> Don't get me wrong. I certainly think its a good thing to know what one is
> talking about and a systematic survey is a fine way to inspect a field,
> but
> I think you want to play a very specific game. Also, Pirsig has own ideas
> about the history of philosophy and paints a different picture. To put it
> plainly, knowledge of the mystical reality was lost long ago. This might
> not
> sound like philosophy as you understand it, but that's just part of the
> blind spot. In fact, I've been investigating the pre-Socratic philosophers
> for a while and am fairly well convinced that that philosophy began with
> these mystical experiences at their very center. That's what it was ALL
> about. As I understand Pirsig, Plato was talking about it too. His Quality
> was not identical because Plato tried to turn it into something static,
> but
> they were both talking about that mystical reality, that undivided
> reality.
> Now its buried deep, so deep that you don't know what the hell I'm talking
> about, huh? It started at the beginning and so a survey of Western
> philosophy is likely to make things worse rather than better with respect
> to
> the blindspot surrounding mysticism.
>
> Paul said:
> Secondly, if we are looking to understand the MOQ in its inescapable,
> albeit implicit, historic context then let us not exclude the history of
> eastern philosophy nor indeed accounts of Native American mysticism.
>
> dmb adds:
> Zackly. We can play the history game if we broaden our parameters. And we
> have to in order to be fair simply because the MOQ goes beyond Western
> philosophy. The perennial philosophy includes both East and West, ancient
> and modern. Philosophical mysticism ain't that particular about
> particulars,
> but it does put the mystical reality back at the center of things. It
> might
> just seem like mere contradiction at this point, but I don't think a
> working
> knowledge of the Western tradition is the crucial thing to have in
> understanding the MOQ. I think the MOQ is incomprehensible without an
> understanding of mysticism. And since the Western tradition is
> fundamentally
> hostile to mysticism your background might actually be holding you back on
> this point.
>
> Paul's killer question:
> Did philosophy invent the contemplation of experience or did the
> contemplation of experience invent philosophy?
>
> dmb says:
> I'm tempted to go off on an imaginary journey back to the days of the
> caveman, in cold, starving winter, when the best thing to do is lay under
> warm, heavy fur and dream your brains out, but I'll skip all that. Let's
> just say it seems obvious to me that philosophy grew out of some very
> basic
> human experiences. Philosophy was invented by a guy who'd been asleep and
> half-dead for several weeks. When he emerged from the darkness of the cave
> and began to speak, his elegant and fasicinating reports were accompanied
> by
> the worst case of morning-breath ever. He was enlightened, but he
> desperately needed a toothbrush. Halitoseus Trismegastice was his name.
> His
> auspicous countenance glow with the dharmakaya light, but you definately
> wouldn't want him to kiss you, not without a little mouthwash first.
> That's
> how the mystical secret was lost. No one wanted to let him get close
> enough
> to whisper. "Write it down", they said, hoping to avoid the offensive
> odor.
> Problem was, the written language hadn't been invented yet. Poof! It was
> gone. Neo-lithic oral hygiene, or rather the lack of it, doomed Western
> civilizaton to centuries of superficial materialism and spiritual exile.
>
>
>
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