From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Mar 22 2003 - 19:53:04 GMT
Matt said:
I've considered whether Pirsig is "post-post-modern," (a term that is even
worse than post-modern) but I just don't see it. The route that Rorty goes
in taking the post-modern turn is getting rid of the appearance/reality
distinction and, as I see it, that distinction is absolutely paramount to
the mysticism Pirsig wants to incorporate. As I see it, he's riding a
fence between modern and post-, but needless to say, I still want to
consider if he has found a third alternative.
DMB says:
The appearance/reality distinction is a feature of SOM, which, as you surely
know, the MOQ dis-solves. His empiricism is expanded to include more kinds
of experience, but stops shorts and makes no claims about what is beyond our
perceptions. The percieved values are all we get in the MOQ. on the ohter,
spiritual hand, in a mystical experience, when our illusions are shattered,
dualities of all sorts disappear. At-one-ment. One with the universe. etc.
Its all about a Unity, a dissolution of the distinction between self and
reality. Either way you cut it, philosophically or spiritually, the MOQ
transcends the appearance/reality distinction. Like postmodernism, it
dispells foundational assumptions, but it doesn't get all mired in
unverifiablity, relativity, free-floating contingency or the other kinds of
amoral nihilisms that postmodernists suffers from. Unlike the MOQ, "they
regard fields such as art, morality, relgion and metaphysics as
unverifiable". The inability the verify such things is not a problem with
the things, but is a problem with the assumtions of the metaphysics of
substance. Morals and values are the platypi of SOM and is precisely the
trap that postmodernism falls so deeply into. Pomo is SOM. The MOQ is
post-SOM. That's why the MOQ is post-pomo.
Pirsig said on the second page of chapter 8:
"The MOQ subscribes to what is called empiricism. It claims that all
legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or by thinking about what
the senses provide. Most empiricists deny the validity of any knowledge
gained through imagination, authority, tradition or purely theoretical
reasoning. They regard fields such as art, morality, religion and
metaphysics as unverifiable. The MOQ varies from this by saying that the
values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable, and
that in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not
empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the metaphysical
assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and objects and
anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object isn't real.
There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It is just an
assumption."
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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