From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Fri Feb 25 2005 - 16:54:34 GMT
Scott Roberts stated February 21st:
>Most of my criticisms of the MOQ derive from two sources. One comes from my
>thinking about consciousness and language, and the other comes from the
>Buddhist doctrine that form is formlessness, formlessness is form. It is my
>opinion that the MOQ has not grasped this.
Ant McWatt commented February 21st:
>Except it definitely has, as emphasised by italics in Section 2.1.1. of my
>PhD thesis...
Scott Roberts responded February 24th:
>My first thought on reading this was that if Pirsig has grasped the
>doctrine
>of the Middle Way, then he was intellectually misleading to have dumbed
>down
>Lila's discussion of mysticism, since you just can't get from ZAMM and Lila
>the idea that DQ is SQ, SQ is DQ.
Ant McWatt comments:
Scott,
I don’t think it was necessary for Pirsig to elucidate the doctrine of the
Buddhist dialectic of negation in LILA as a full and excellent account of it
is already given in Northrop’s “The Meeting of East & West” (Chapter IX,
“Buddhism” sub-heading). As the latter text of Northrop’s is emphasised in
ZMM, any scholar seriously interested in Pirsig’s work would soon realise
that the static patterns correspond to forms while Dynamic Quality
corresponds to formlessness. Why do you think I keep recommending
Northrop’s work?
Scott Roberts responded February 24th:
>I think also that using DQ and SQ rather than formlessness and form makes
>this even more difficult -- form can be seen as the interaction of the
>dynamic and the static, with formlessness being identical to their
>interaction -- two forces of one Power, as Coleridge has it.
Ant McWatt comments:
What you've written here about DQ and SQ is opaque. To keep things simple,
I think it is better to simply say that the forms correspond to static
patterns of quality while formlessness corresponds to Dynamic Quality. The
phrase “Dynamic” is a better one than “formlessness” because it implies the
creative action of the Tao rather than implying (incorrectly) that it is
inactive or impotent.
>But I think it is more likely that he just hasn't quite
>grasped the full import of the doctrine. He says (NOT in Lila or ZAMM,
>note)
>"In Buddhism, form and formlessness, freedom and order, co-exist."
>Co-existence is a long way from identity of contradictories.
Ant McWatt comments:
I think you are underestimating Pirsig’s understanding of Buddhist
philosophy here. He has certainly stated that freedom and order are
contradictory properties even though both are necessary in the ongoing
creative dance of the Tao. In the context of form and formlessness, I
therefore don’t think Pirsig’s “co-existence is a long way from identity of
contradictories”. Only a contrary (and misleading) reading of Pirsig’s work
would lead one to this conclusion.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
www.anthonymcwatt.co.uk
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