From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 17 2003 - 17:35:17 BST
Paul,
Paul said:
At the moment I'm just more interested in a bit of good old detailed textual analysis (which I know can get a bit tedious) and I'm unsure if it is something appropriate to online discussion groups anyway.
Matt:
I love old-fashioned, tedious textual analysis! That's one of the things I want to do with Pirsig. Given the perception I think people have of me (maybe not you Paul, but others), this may seem strange, but I don't think so. My essay stuck pretty close to his texts, and I'm planning (planning still at this stage) several different areas of Pirsig's text that I want to analyze. And I've done some of that on this forum. (Ex: my "The Populist Persuasion" post from December in which I explore Pirsig's creation and use of the term "philosophology". And, in case some people were curious, I do quote Pirsig several times in that post.)
But I think, in a sense, you are right that heavy textual analysis isn't completely appropriate or, rather, its not as feasible. You can exchange quotes and generate some good stuff, but the real thing happens in an extended essay. So, I think a lot of your research can be generated here. I know I lot of mine has. I've had many great passages (some I think philosophically wonderful, some flubs, but all illuminating) pointed out to me by people here that have helped shape the picture of Pirsig I now carry around. Its just taking the passages I do have and getting them to jive with the rest of his passages, to ask, "Well, I think this is what Pirsig's up to, but is that what he's doing here or is my hypothesis bunk, or maybe just needs revising...." That's what literary criticism is all about.
So, I wish you would send that post Paul. About half of the stuff I post, the half I call biography, is aimed at unearthing Pirsig's guiding assumptions, the assumptions that shape the way he reads, writes, lives, and philosophizes. Assumptions that will tell me, for instance, why somebody who wants to co-opt William James and American pragmatism takes him in a direction different than Richard Rorty, who is doing the same thing. I would definitely be very intrigued with the analysis you've done and, after some dialogue, I would hope you'd write it up as an essay for the Forum. If you ask me, that's where the real action takes place.
Matt
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