[MD] Intellectual and Social

[MarshaV]

 Duh...   
 
 
 
On Jan 11, 2010, at 3:17 PM, X Acto wrote:

> Holy.. fucking ....shit...Matt is finally out with it...
> 
> about god damned time....
> 
> 
> 
> -Ron
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Mon, January 11, 2010 2:05:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [MD] Intellectual and Social
> 
> 
> Steve said:
> I think Matt Kundert would argue that the sort of 
> metaphysical certainty you are looking for is what drove 
> Pirsig to insanity and later to developing a new 
> metaphysics.
> 
> Matt, what do you think? Did Pirsig find some comfortable 
> resolution in his quest for certainty?
> 
> Matt:
> Well, in Pirsig's case, I think chemical imbalances played a 
> big role in what happened, but yeah, the quest for 
> certainty drove him off a cliff.
> 
> When you state "his quest," I think we have to answer 
> yes.  From what little appearances we know of Bob 
> Pirsig's life since the time of ZMM, he's been able to 
> control the demons that left him in the corner of a 
> Chicago apartment with cigarettes burning into his 
> knuckles.  I think the most important thing to understand 
> about Pirsig's philosophy is the personal nature Pirsig 
> most of the time perceives to be at the heart of the 
> philosophical enterprise.  This is the point at which we 
> might bring up the James picture of a hallway with 
> different doors, or an art gallery with a myriad of 
> paintings.  This, of course, makes Pirsig sound like he 
> only half-meant the Metaphysics of Quality.  Emphasizing 
> the fact that Pirsig thought philosophy was like playing 
> chess, rather than having a perfect set of chess moves, 
> suggests to some that the system Pirsig created is 
> trying to be ignored.  The question is: how do we 
> balance Chapter 26 of Lila, the philosophology chapter 
> wherein Pirsig tells us how to read philosophy, with 
> Chapter 12, the levels chapter wherein Pirsig solves a 
> few philosophical problems with his Metaphysics of 
> Quality?
> 
> Pirsig attempted to develop a new metaphysics not just 
> for himself, but for others, too--everybody gets that.  The 
> Metaphysics of Quality wasn't _just_ for Pirsig.  However, 
> the way to balance the self-other equation might be like 
> this: the Metaphysics of Quality is Pirsig's, but the 
> insights of the Metaphysics of Quality are for everyone.
> 
> The "comfortable resolution" of a quest can only be 
> decided by the life lived, because that's ultimately where 
> philosophy dumps out.  I think one of the greatest 
> passages Pirsig wrote is the gumption chapter in ZMM.  
> In that chapter, Pirsig brought together philosophical 
> abstraction with practical living--he showed us how he 
> thinks his explorations of the "high country of the mind" 
> dump out into the valleys of life.  What he shows is how a 
> mind can get trapped in certain thought-loops, like the 
> monkey and the rice.  That's what happened to Phaedrus.  
> _That's_ the problem with the Quest for Certainty.  What 
> Pirsig picked up are techniques for quelling the inferential 
> machine known as the mind--that's what the art of 
> meditation specifically helps with.  Pirsig perceived (rightly 
> I think) the modern mind as quickly skipping down a road 
> that will eventually prove to be self-destructive to both 
> individual and society.  So Pirsig wanted to expand a 
> different set of roads, to show how we don't need to run 
> into dilemmas like "where is the value, in the subject or 
> object?"
> 
> But there are _many_ ways of avoiding certain bad trains 
> of thought--Pirsig's one occasional fault is that he 
> sometimes creates the appearance of yelling out alone at 
> night.  But there are a _lot_ of intellectuals who perceive 
> similiar evils and propose useful techniques and roads of 
> travel.  The one major problem caused by Pirsig's 
> occasional flirtation with superlative uniqueness, which 
> we could forgive in a friend, is that it leads to inflexibility 
> of thought in fellow-travelers.  It leads people to perceive 
> themselves as _not_ fellow-travelers, but rather disciples.  
> It leads to the thought that edifices of thought generated 
> by thinkers must be either rejected or accepted 
> wholecloth, and that disagreement with the master is a 
> rejection of everything holy.
> 
> Pirsig became comfortable with his quest for certainty 
> because he eventually learned how to tone down the 
> personal ramifications for failure.  I think he learned that 
> it isn't a Quest for Certainty that the philosophical 
> tradition is in search of an answer to, but rather a 
> personal quest for the kinds of everyday certainties that 
> we act out of.  Phaedrus' quest in ZMM may have begun 
> as Plato's, but Pirsig's quest in writing it down was the 
> quest to resolve doubts about the everyday certainties 
> that are leading to bad things.  Phaedrus began with 
> Doubt about the possibility of Certainty, but Pirsig 
> finished with specific doubts about particular certainties.  
> Pirsig eventually became comfortable with the line of 
> thought he'd written down, and the kinds of life-instincts 
> it had given him.  
> 
> That _others_ may not be comfortable 
> with his resolution only matters insofar as what is being 
> pointed to are limitations in the tools and insights he 
> afforded.  Philosophy is autobiographical--we are 
> commending things we've found useful.  What philosophy 
> is not is a search for an Answer to an antecedantly 
> posed Question, like from Reality, or some other entity 
> that's big and powerful enough to be able to pose a 
> question antecedantly to spatialtemporal people.  Only 
> with the latter understanding of philosophy does it make 
> sense to "reject the MoQ," or any system.  Only if one 
> assumes that there are universally perspicuous 
> questions that every philosophy or person must have an 
> answer to, would one think that the MoQ's success rests 
> on its ability to please everyone.  Only if one thinks 
> there's a big universal Quest humanity is on, rather than 
> a lot of little quests individual people are on, will one 
> take seriously the rhetoric of "demonstration" and 
> "proving."
> 
> Philosophy is autobiography for Pirsig, and it is best 
> served by taking it seriously, but not too seriously.
> 
> Matt
>                         
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