From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Dec 17 2003 - 14:45:27 GMT
Paul, Wim, Steve, Bo,
Everybody pretty much knows how I feel about this whole thing, versions of the MoQ and such. I read something by Rorty, though, that kinda' captures the whole thing for me. In a response to an article by Jacques Bouveresse, Rorty begins talking about his relation to Derrida. Everyone should be able to see the connection:
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Let me conclude this section of my response by saying something more about the particular case of Derrida. As Bouveresse notes, Derrida has not said what he thinks of my attempt to read him as one reads Proust. It is quite possible, even likely, that he hates it. However this may be, I entirely agree with Bouveresse that Freud _would_ hate to be read as I read him -- with no attention to his pretensions to "science," and thus little interest in, for example, Grunbaum's criticisms of him. But even if Derrida's attitude is "God save me from 'friends' like Rorty," my admiration and respect for him would probably not deter me from continuing to read him, and to write about him in much the same vein. I find much (though not everything) that Derrida writes engrossing and exciting, as I do much (though not everything) that Freud wrote. As with Freud, I use Derrida's writings as grist for my own mill -- taking what I want and setting aside what I find pointless.
Reading authors against their own expectations, against the grain of their intentions, is often a profitable exercise, no matter how annoyed the authors get at finding themselves so read. Certainly authors are not the best authorities on how to use their own books. More generally, philosophy professors may not be the best authorities on which philosophy books can do most for the progress of human civilization. Once we write our books, we should, I think, sit back and say, "Habent sua fata libelli; anybody who cares enough to read them can do what they want to with my books, and good luck to them." I admit that it is often exasperating to read other people's summaries of what one has said; I have frequently experienced this exasperation myself. But I do not think there is much point in insisting that the only legitimate Rezeptionsgescheichte is one in which authorial intention is respected.
The best service we authors can do one another is to treat each other's books not as monoliths but rather as (to use Wittgenstein's image) ropes made up of overlapping strands, any assortment of which can be picked out and woven together with strands picked out from other ropes. Bouveresse says that such an attitude may be "the best way to encourage philosophers to tolerance" but that "unhappily it is at a price which they are not disposed to pay, and which perhaps they _cannot_ really pay." I think they _can_, and that their dispositions do not matter. If an interesting philosopher chooses to behave like an "intellectual dictator," so much the worse for him or her. That bad behavior should not deter us from doing what we like with his or her writings.
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I might be alone on this, but I think I see Wim coming close to this. Bo, however, is close but still not at this point because he still retains the notion of a TRUE MoQ (when he says, "The reason why my interpretation intellect ... is seen as such a sacrilege must be because MOQ's real scope isn't understood"), which pragmatists like (in this limited interpretational sense) Wim and myself think pointless. "True MoQ" for us means "Pirsig's reading of his own book," which is what one does when you do what I've been calling biography.
The reason I can't figure out what the TRUE MoQ is is because I have no idea how you would verify it. It invites the skeptic to ask, "But how do you KNOW your MoQ is the TRUE MoQ?" The only thing you can do, if you aren't saving authorial intention, is give the same kinds of reasons people like myself give: good ones. The appellation of "TRUE" adds nothing to the explanation or to what results from the reasons. It's superfluous. It only allows the skeptic to ask his annoying question.
Again, the only verification we can give are good reasons, but those are the same kinds of reasons that pragmatists like myself give. The reason Squonk's condemnations of my poor quality are so weak is because he very rarely gave any reasons. He would say it like it was obvious, but the only thing that was obvious was that I wasn't respecting authorial intention all the time. That's why I called Squonk a priest and Pirsig his prophet.
I think Bo is right when he says, "We are all sinners here." Everybody uses what they want from Pirsig when they are doing philosophy because the are excavating the contents of _their_ minds, not the contents of Pirsig's mind. I think that everybody should be able to do that if they want. I think it a perfectly reasonable intention for this website. I've always taken rebukes when I find myself convinced that I have the wrong bead on Pirsig, but I've always taken them lightly because usually I'm doing philosophy, not biography.
Matt
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