Re: MD Quality as such or Dynamic Quality?

From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 19:38:03 BST

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    Hi Steve,

    >
    > If we accept that metaphysics can only be concerned with what can be
    > bounded
    > by definition, then DQ must be definable. But that implies a limitation
    > to
    > DQ, which is exactly what a static pattern is. If DG must remain
    > ineffable
    > and indefinable then it cannot be part of a metaphysical system. This is
    > Pirsig's contradiction.

    I think the problem only arises if we think a metaphysics has to be
    complete. In Lila Pirsig is very careful to say what his metaphysics can and
    cannot do. To begin with he insists that any metaphysics must be
    provisional: "Unlike subject-object metaphysics [the Platonic tradition] the
    Metaphysics of Quality does not insist on a single exclusive truth.one
    doesn't seek the absolute 'Truth'. One seeks instead the highest quality
    intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is
    any guide to the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as
    useful until something better comes along". This, by itself, precludes the
    idea that the metaphysics of quality can function as Redemptive Truth.
    Furthermore, Pirsig agrees with William James that 'Truth is a species of
    good' and states: "Truth is a static intellectual pattern within a larger
    entity called Quality." Pirsig is quite clearly maintaining the ZMM stance
    which is disassociated from the mainstream of Western/Platonic thought: he
    is not offering the metaphysics of quality to the world as a contender for
    Redemptive Truth or the answer to life the universe and everything. He just
    thinks it's a high quality explanation, that might be useful.

    If we accept that the MoQ is incomplete then DQ can simply correspond to
    'what we don't know', or 'here there be dragons' on a medieval map. In other
    words it doesn't have to be defined, it doesn't have to be a reified concept
    (which I suspect a number of interlocutors here do make it). But I don't
    think it can stand for Quality as such. Perhaps the role of DQ is simply to
    encourage our humility in the face of all the things about which we know
    nothing.

    Sam

    "The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned
    man who is proud of his large cell." Simone Weil

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