From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 13 2005 - 01:47:17 GMT
Matt and all interested MOQers:
DMB said:
...you are confusing ineffability with some kind of Kantian gap between
appearance and reality, ...But the "ineffability" of the mystical
experience refers to the gap between two kinds of experience, mystical
experience and intellectual experience, and NOT between that which we
experience and that which we are forever completely ignorant...
Matt replied:
...its not so much that I confuse the two as I define "knowledge" in such a
way that the very idea of "non-linguistic knowledge" doesn't make sense. I
do this because I actually can't make much sense of the idea. ...I know
what linguistic knowledge is. But what is non-linguistic knowledge? Can
you describe it to me? But you can't. Its inexpressible. To describe it
would throw it into the linguistic pile. So I don't know what to do with
it. To my mind it doesn't play a part, a wheel set spinning that doesn't
touch anything.
dmb says:
First of all. I think your definition is knowledge is extremely debatable. I
tempted to delete everything you said after these opening comments and focus
exclusively on this definition. But I'm gonna do that because its wouldn't
be very much fun and the assertion I'm trying to get across centers around a
category of experience NOT a definition of knowledge per se. I mean, the
shift from "pre-intellectual experience" to "non-linguistic knowledge" has
the effect of changing the subject. Its easy to say there is no such thing
as non-linguistic knowledge if knowledge is defined as linguistic, but that
begs the question and I'm not even talking about knowledge as such anyway.
Secondly, you've breezed over the distinction between an ineffable
experience and a Kantian noumenal realm again, which is my main point here.
Surely anyone can see the difference between an unknowable realm that can
never be experienced directly and an experience that can't be captured in
words? The first can never be known directly while the second can only be
known directly. I think this is just one of many cases in which you try to
apply the Rortarian critique to Pirsig, as if Pirsig were Plato or Kant. Why
else would you try to apply your theory of knowledge to an experience that
is described as "intellectually unknowable" or "pre-intellectual". Obviously
we can "know" this experience in the sense that we can "have" such
experiences, but this should not be confused with intellectual knowlede and
in fact this all began by making a distinction between these various
categories of experience. It seems you've rejected and dismissed
epistemological pluralism, reducing all human knowledge to language. But
you're definately going to misunderstand what I'm saying if you assume I
have also rejected pluralism in favor of your reduction or equate Pirsig's
categories with those empty Platonic categories.
My third and final point concerns your assertion that effing the ineffable
somehow destroys it, nullifies as a distinct category of experience. Somehow
the difference between them is such that converting one to the other utter
swallows up the original? Huh? How does that work? I mean, why can't we have
experiences that are beyond such intellectual formulations? Who made up that
rule? And is your theory of knowledge so powerfully persuasive that you're
actually willing to ignore, dismiss or otherwise discount a category of
experience simply because it doesn't fit the theory? Isn't that the problem
Pirsig is trying to solve in the first place? Yes. Yes, it is.
Matt said:
..._We_ are _defined_ as never being able to come close to it. I'm not
defining us that way--everybody has always defined us that way. Eastern
mystics with their concept of maya and enlightenment, the Judeo-Christian
tradition with its ideas of Fallenness and Redemption, the Platonic
tradition's Divided Line, Descartes' episteme, Kant's noumena. Ever since
humanity became a linguistic creature it has been searching for a way back
to purity. We are fallen, we are fallible, we can't ever have what is
supposedly best for us.
dmb says:
I think its a huge mistake to read me (or Pirsig) as defining us this way.
As it is explained in ZAMM, Phaedrus' central complaint was that Plato had
converted the Quality of the Sophists into a fixed, static form. By turning
this fluid and intellectually unknowable experience into an idea, he created
one of the first empty categories. He took something that was supposed to be
known and realized in the stream of life and converted into some rather
implausible entities. Are we really supposed to believe that there is some
invisible, eternal blueprint of which all manifest reality is imperfect
copy, or whatever? Its sheer nonsense. Or how about Kant's unknowable realm?
What reason do we have for believeing there is any such thing? As Pirsig
points out quite explicitly, a thing that is not experienced does not exist.
See, I think you want to critique Pirsig's categories as if they were like
other empty categories, categories of realities that no one has ever
experience such as the noumenal realm, the theistic God, the Platonic forms.
But Pirsig is not doing that sort of thing at all. Myticism isn't doing that
sort of thing at all. I'm not either. Pirsig's categories are based on
experience. Experience comes first and theories are secondary. The MOQ's
test of truth is fairly loose, it only has to make sense, say it well, and -
here the biggy - it has to agree with experience. If there is a category of
experience that the theory can't explain, then we gotta get a new theory. To
the extent that your approach excludes everything except linguistic
knowledge, you gotta get a new theory too. I mean, your approach seems to
undo the MOQ so that this problem is unsolved.
And of course this emphasis on experience is what prevents the MOQ from
defining us as "never being able to come close to it". In the MOQ, there is
no reality outside of experience, no divine beings, hypothetical realities
or theorical realms. These empty metaphysical categories are replaced by
categories of experience. Your neo-kantian critique simply does not apply.
Part of the Wilber quote addressed this point exactly. "Kant demonstrated
that mental symbols without experiential grounding are EMPTY: but the real
conclusion of his argument is that ALL FUTURE METAPHYSICS MUST BE
EXPERIENTIAL - ".
Matt said:
...But what does it mean to lose the wistful tone when we recognize that
absolute certainty is a pipe dream, when we realize that--whatever it means
to be fallen--it is the way we are? I think part of it is ditching the
distinction between purity and impurity. _All_ experience is pure.
dmb says:
I certainly enjoy a good pipe dream as much as the next guy, but I really
don't get this problem with absolute certainty. It reminds me of the
non-reductionist idea of adding a qualifier to every description pointing
out that "this isn't REALLY how it is". I mean, I thought it just went
without saying. Besides religious fanatics, who asserts absolute certainty
about anything? I can't help but think you're applying this critique
inappropriately too. I mean, you're reading "pure experience" as if it were
to be equated with "Absolute certainty" and then criticized as such.
Matt said:
I think Pirsig's mistake in the move from ZMM to Lila was when he
reconfigured the classic/romantic distinction into the static/Dynamic by
draining the romantic of its _every_dayness and vaulting it up into the
mystic's eternal Other, something rare and mysterious. ...I suspect the
first line of reply from you, DMB, will be to protest that Pirsig's point is
that DQ just _is_ this everydayness, that mysticism isn't as esoteric as all
that. I think that's the proper move, but I think that's a strike against
the tone being used, as pathos slides off the end towards bathos.
dmb says:
Heaven is this world, rightly seen. Its direct every day reality and it is
the heart of the ineffable mystery of existence. You're already enlightened,
but don't yet realize it. Then there is the 180 degree enlightenment versus
the 360 degree enlightenment. The heroic model also depicts the journey out
of the ordinary world and into a special world where much is learned and he
then returns to transform that ordinary home with a little bit of what he
learned. In the Guidebook we have the Ox Herding Pictures, with its similar
return to the marketplace. But the paradoxical nature of mystical
perspectives only reveals the real meaning of the word "ineffable", which is
to say intellectual descriptions don't cut the mustard. Its a different
category of experience. Intellectual descriptions convert it into a mental
experience, which is then subjected to the standard critera of evaluating
intellectual statements and poof! You've got a big ball of confusion.
Matt said:
...Going back to Pirsig's original point about Quality, that experience _is_
reality, that we _are_ always and everywhere in touch with reality, should
be enough to make us rethink the way Pirsig talks about DQ sometimes. If we
are always in touch with Quality, and DQ and mysticism happen in everyday
life, then I think we should realize that there's no sense in trying to
_chase_ DQ--that when Pirsig talks about being more _open_ to DQ, he's
singing in a minor key that is an outcome of the pathos of distance, the one
he sought to ditch by collapsing experience and reality into each other's
arms. DQ will happen to us whether we want it to or not--we can't be more
or less open to it. You don't _choose_ to have God speak to you--God
chooses, and usually quite inexplicably.
dmb says:
Singing in a minor key? There you go again trying to read Pirsig as if he's
asserting some unknowable reality. You seem to offer only two choices. The
MOQ has to be saying something about exotic and unreachable heights or it
has to be talking about trivialities and ordinariness. Says who? I think
you're takiing advantage of the paradoxical and ineffable nature of mystical
sayings here too. I mean, the orginal idea is that reality is undivided and
beyond definition, but that metaphysics requires definitions and divisions.
And even after the static/Dynamic split, the MOQ asserts that our experience
is always a mixture of the two, that you can't have one without the other
and that we know both of them through experience. The idea of waiting around
for God to speak, that God chooses some us is, I think, quite ridiculous.
The idea that there is nothing we can do about the way we percieve or think
about our reality is also quite ridiculous. I mean, let's think about
applying that attitude to any other form of experience. Do you suppose
Newton or Einstein sat around waiting for mathematical truths to presents
themselves or did they become acutely aware of that class of mental
experience and otherwise soak themselves in it? Would you dismiss Einstein
because it takes a specialist to fully comprehend it or dismiss Newton
because falling apples are common? As for that pathos of distance thing,
well, there is a huge difference between unknowable realms, these eternally
Other Gods in their someday-maybe heavens, and the sort of enlightenment
depicted in the MOQ. Instead of asserting some kind of ontological or
epistemological gap, the MOQ asserts an evolutionary picture, with
corresponding categories of experience. I think its inaccurate to suggest
the MOQ would have us "chase" DQ. I think Pirsig is only saying that DQ is
something we experience, that this class of experience has been excluded for
metaphysical reasons and that we should stop excluding it. I've heard this
same sort of complaint in the form of "priviledging" DQ over sq and such,
but I think its really more accurate and fair to say that Pirsig's MOQ is
making the much less drastic assertion that its harmful and stupid to
exclude it, that there is no good reason to exclude it.
And really, what good is a any philosophy if it can't account for a whole
class of experience, from the gooviness of the artists and craftsman to the
life-altering exerience of a vision quester. Does it really make sense to
say they have no knowledge of art or visions simply because their experience
can't be formulated into words or fit into some tradition?
Matt said:
A related tone that may or may not be in Pirsig, but I find it in you and
others here, is what we might call the pathos of belatedness. This is
something like a temporal distance--those in the past were closer to X, but
now we have fallen off the path. You find it in both Rousseau and Heidegger
who both loved the Greeks (actually, the Greeks are commonly the lost love
for Westerners). I'm thinking of your characterization of the Sophists as
the last philosophical mystics in the West, that we've lost a tradition that
we desperately need to recover. This again causes a tone of wistfulness for
a time that is not here. It causes people to write downward spiraling
stories of regress rather than upbeat stories of progress. ...For my own
self, I don't think there is a lost tradition that we desperately need to
recover. I don't think we need anything philosophical desperately. What we
desperately need is a way out of the material bind we've placed on our
children,... And I don't think either mysticism or religion or any other
high culture pursuit is going to help with those more
short-term goals.
dmb says:
If you want an upbeat story, go to the cineplex and plunk down some cash.
Yes, I'm writing about what was lost, about the experiences we've learned to
ignore, about the blind spot in the Western worldview. Naturally, I'm NOT
suggesting that we go back in time or otherwise abandon the accomplishments
of the Western worldview. Going back to the Sophists is just a way to get an
answer to the question of how this blindspot developed, how we learned to
ignore experience when it doesn't fit the theory. Where did these
categories, subjects and objects, come from and is that really the best way
to slice things up? But this same detective also includes descriptions of DQ
in terms of his own experience, in our culture and in our time. And of
course evolution is the name of the game in the MOQ so going backward is the
last thing it suggests. And it occurs to me that one of the main reasons for
wanting to get DQ back onto the philosophical table is to serve evolution,
to serve the cause of progress. The MOQ's morality is designed to serve and
protect progress. I mean, there is no shortage of evidence to defend the MOQ
from charges of regression or otherwise spiraling downwards.
As to the confession that you see no need to recover anything, I'm not
surprized to hear that. I think you have dismissed this element because it
doesn't have a lot of personal meaning, and naturally I think that blindspot
has something to do with your apathy, but that's really not a good reason to
alter the MOQ. I suppose it would be a pretty huge task to try to persuade
you of the urgency of this "recovery" project and or the centrality of this
recovery in the MOQ, especially since you've already read his books and
remain unmoved. Basically, the MOQ is a solution to a problem you don't
recognize and/or care about. No wonder you don't get what I'm saying. No
wonder you don't get the MOQ. No wonder you wanna take the metaphysics and
the Quality out of the metaphysics of Quality. It seems to me that
interpreting the MOQ through this Rortian filter is quite unworkable and it
would be much better and easier to simply admit that the MOQ is not for you.
Matt concluded:
...A way of wraping this together is to follow the Pirsigian, upbeat story
of progress on the track of Quality, from inorganic to biological to social
to intellectual. What I'm saying about knowledge and pre-linguistic knowing
is that knowledge is what happens at the intellectual level. "Knowing" is
what we do at the intellectual level. DQ isn't a _way_ of knowing (just as
our cells aren't a way of knowing), it is an impingement on our knowledge.
If the track is Quality, the cars static patterns, and DQ the front edge of
the train, then our knowledge is what's being changed by DQ, but its not a
different way of experiencing the world. We should stop viewing DQ as an
alternative to static patterns. DQ _breaks_ patterns, and broken
intellectual patterns are innovations and epistemic revolutions. DQ may
_cause_ changes in our static patterns, but as long as DQ is what it is, it
can't be a _way_ of doing anything. There is only one way--static
patterns.
dmb wraps it up too:
I think you're alll mixed up here. You're treating Quality, DQ and sq as if
there were there things, but there is just One divided by two metaphysical
categories. One divided in half renders two. You don't get to retain the
undivided Quality and ADD it to the two halves. My point? Your train analogy
is far too hacked up to be of any use in this discussion.
And on what basis to you make the claim the "there is only one way" of doing
anything or knowing anything? Why should I believe DQ is an "impingement" on
our knowledge? Why I should I believe that there is a "cause" of change that
is separate from experience? As I understand it, Pirsig embraces pragmatisim
as an alternative to a Hegalian Absolute. Again, he was getting rid of an
empty category, the theoretical entity that is said to be the cause of
historical development, for one based on experience. In the MOQ, human
evolution is driven by Dynamic choices, which is to say it is worked out
through experience. Why insist that DQ is just some mysterious mechanism
outside of the human experience? Why exclude the more exotic experiences
just because they're exotic?
Apologies for the length and for the rambling. Its been a rough day at work,
where I write this stuff.
dmb
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