From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 24 2003 - 22:00:40 BST
David,
David said:
in what way is Lila supporting ahistoricality?
Matt:
The line that gets my panties in a bunch is
"It is absolutely, scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the patient. This is not just an arbitrary social convention that should apply to some doctors but not to all doctors, or to some cultures but not all cultures. It’s true for all people at all times, now and forever...." (Lila, 183)
I ripped it from my essay so I can't give a chapter number (since many of our copies have different pagenation) nor can I provide much context at the moment.
I'm not convinced that its simply a serious and disturbing bout of overkill or that Pirsig had the flu that day and simply missed that part when editing. I'm not quite sure how to read that passage in a fashion other than as endorsing ahistoricality. I'm truly puzzled why a pragmatist would say something like this. Which is why I don't think Pirsig is full-time pragmatist.
Matt
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