From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 19:43:07 GMT
Hi Matt
It is interesting that I have come from the other
direction, lots of philosophy before reading Pirsig about a year ago,
yet I pretty much agree with seeing Pirsig in this context and enjoyed him
mainly for the way he manages to make complex ideas accessible to a more
general audience, with some great analogies and good choice of language.
He also applies his approach over a wider field than most philosophers care
to do. I sympathise with people who have never got on with philosophy
because
you have to do a big chunk of it prior to it paying you back very much,
although
in the end I think it is worth it. I also recognise how difficult it is to
get to the
sort of view Pirsig reaches because many of the modern schools of philosophy
are a long way from Pirsig, but the fringe stuff like German idealism and
the life
philosophies of Bergson and Nietzsche have many similar/related things to
say.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: MD Measuring values
> Ian,
>
> Ian said:
> I've been ploughing through Rorty in the last couple of months and still
find Pirsig to be a pragmatist in Rorty terms, but am constantly baffled
that Rorty steers clear not only of any absolute values, but even from any
useful framework of values like the MoQ.
>
> Matt:
> If you've followed and agreed with most of Rorty's train of thought, I'm
not sure why the bafflement at no "absolute values," but the reason why
Rorty refrains from constructing frameworks is that Rorty agrees with
Stanely Fish that frameworks like the MoQ are just begging for reification,
for "promotion" to transcendental, ahistorical status. Rorty says "that
attempts to erect 'rules' or 'criteria' turn into attempts to hypostatize
and eternalize some past or present practice, thereby making it more
difficult for that practice to be reformed or gradually replaced with a
different practice." ("Cosmopolitianism Without Emancipation" in ORT, 217)
Pragmatists agree with Fish's use of "rules of thumb" over "principles".
>
> Ian said:
> Has Rorty ever published comments on Pirsig or the MoQ ?
>
> Matt:
> No, aside from a letter to Dave Thomas which you can find in the archives
on Friday, May 17 2002 under "Re: MD pragmatism" (it's "From" Dave's handle
"3dwavedave"). His comments are fairly short and I disagree completely with
Dave's (and subsequently other's) assessment of them. I am a strong
adherement of "nobody is required to read anybody else, though anybody can
be saddened by somebody else's reading list." Not the shortest slogan I've
ever written, but the one I find the most useful given the amount of letters
I've received criticizing me by saying "You shouldn't have written your
essay about X, it should've been about Y." Most of the time that counts as
one of the weakest criticisms you could ever try and just begs for the
response, "Well, ya' know what? I didn't write it about Y, I wrote it about
X, so get over it."
>
> Am I saddened by Rorty's short shrift of Pirsig? Sure, no doubt. Do I
understand why Rorty didn't really get into ZMM and didn't make it through
Lila? Yeah, I do, but it has nothing to do with some world-wide
intellectual culture problem as Dave and most Pirsigian's here would have it
(and are in general encouraged to think by Pirsig himself). What books grab
us will always be highly idiosyncratic, but there's no doubt we can trace a
line of reasoning. In Rorty's case, I imagine it had a lot to do with why I
tend to think Sophie's World (by Jostein Gaarder) is a pile of tripe.
Sophie's World is probably giving ZMM a run for its money as the most widely
sold book that has philosophy in it, yet I think it crap, mainly because the
philosophy is so dumbed down that its nigh worthless. Why would I think so?
Because I've already read a lot of philosophy. In Rorty's case, philosophy
is what he does for a living and I imagine that ZMM's plot didn't capture hi
m (for whatever
> highly idiosyncratic, probably inexplicable reason) and the philosophy
was something he could pick up elsewhere (Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Wittgenstein, James, Dewey, etc.). In Lila's case, Pirsig tried to get
mileage out of the word "metaphysics," which is immediately a strike against
you. Why did Lila (and Pirsig in general) grab me and not Rorty? Probably
because when I originally read Pirsig I hadn't read a lot of philosophy and
I thought you _could_ get mileage out of "metaphysics." I've since dropped
that aspiration, but before I did I already had come to understand Pirsig's
philosophy. The contentious contention that has gotten me in so much
trouble at this website is that you can drop Pirsig's fascination with the
word "metaphysics" (and all of its baggage) and still get most of what
Pirsig was offering.
>
> Most people think that the MoQ is somehow extremely exclusive in what its
offering, that it is extraordiarily different from everything else past,
present, and future. I think this silly. I think Pirsig was participating
in a general movement away from a peculiarly philosophical problem, one that
sees him in bed with Dewey, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida,
Fish, and Rorty. I think he got good practical mileage out of it in ZMM,
but not so much in Lila. When Pirsig was edifying, he was brilliant. When
he was systematic, he became boring and flawed. I can get past how boring
most people find Lila because I'm not bored by philosophy. I read what are
generally considered "boring books" all the time. I find them exciting
(when they are, at least). But in Pirsig's attempt to be systematic in
Lila, I think he got trapped by some of the disease he was trying to cure,
much like Dewey and Heidegger did. So when people say that Pirsig is the
most original philosoph
> er of this past century, I think they are sacrificing a general
understanding of intellectual history in a misguided attempt to apotheosize
their favorite philosopher.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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