From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Aug 17 2003 - 23:26:51 BST
Ian:
> I don't see why that invalidates my suggestion that Pirsig is a
> pragmatist. James and Phaedrus were both (and most of us would be I
> guess) equally horrified at anything that might justify Nazism. James
> and Dewey et al didn't have Pirigs MoQ framework with which to evaluate
> the quality of value judgements.
>
> Pirsig is a pragmatist who's invented a useful tool.
Guess I have to lay out the entire argument why Pirsig is no
pragmatist. Again, from Chap. 29 of Lila: (Thought you liked short
posts.)
"But the Metaphysics of Quality states that practicality is a social
pattern of good. It is immoral for truth to be subordinated to social
values since that is a lower form of evolution devouring a higher one.
The idea that satisfaction alone is the test of anything is very
dangerous, according to the Metaphysics of Quality. There are different
kinds of satisfaction and some of them are moral nightmares. The
Holocaust produced a satisfaction among Nazis. That was quality for
them. They considered it to be practical. But it was a quality dictated
by low level static social and biological patterns whose overall
purpose was to retard the evolution of truth and Dynamic Quality."
To suggest Pirsig is a pragmatist after this critique of pragmatism
from an MOQ perspective seems odd. Can you show where Pirsig wrote
something that would suggest he is a pragmatist? Did he ever say, for
example, that he invented the MOQ as a "useful tool."
Platt
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