[MD] Metaphysics

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Marsha, Bo, All,

Marsha:
>I still like to hear an agreed upon definition of metaphysics.

The issue between Bo and I is that we don't agree on the meaning of
the word. I think what's of issue is the more specific question of
what the "M" in Pirsig's philosophy "the MOQ" means. We should
consider what Pirsig himself says he means by the term "metaphysics."

Here is the passage in Lila where he talks about metaphysics in general:

"Metaphysics was an area of study that had interested him more than
any other as an undergraduate philosophy student in the United States
and later as a graduate student in India....Metaphysics is what
Aristotle called the First Philosophy.  It's a
collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical structure
of thought.  On one of his slips he had copied a definition of it as
"that part of philosophy which deals with the nature and structure of
reality." It asks such questions as, "Are the objects we perceive real
or illusory? Does the external world exist apart from our
consciousness of it?  Is reality ultimately reducible to a single
underlying substance?  If so, is it essentially spiritual or material?
 Is the universe intelligible and orderly or incomprehensible and
chaotic?""

Steve:
So there you have your definition straight from Pirsig. Bo of course
disgrees. He says that metaphysics IS reality. Some philospphers may
use metaphysics the way Bo uses it, while others perhaps agree with
Pirsig's definition, but that isn't of ussue. It doesn't really matter
what metaphysics REALLY means in this discussion. It only matters how
Pirsig uses the term in the phrase that he coined: "the Metaphysics of
Quality."

Again, the question should be, "What does Pirsig mean when he calls
his philosophy "a metaphysics"?" First of all, his use of "a
metaphysics" rather than simply "metaphysics" is an interesting and
unusual use of the term since in the subject-object picture there is
only one correct construction of things--one possible correct
metaphysics.

But Pirsig has a mystical bent. He says, "Historically mystics have
claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too
"scientific."  Metaphysics is not reality.  Metaphysics is names about
reality.  Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a
thirty-thousand page menu and no food."

SOM philosophers have been eating at this restaurant for thousands of
years. Since Bo agrees with the SOMers that metaphysics is reality, he
is looking to the MOQ as the one true understanding of reality. While
Andre wants to paint Bo in this regard as the true believer in this
forum, he is just one more customer like the rest of us at the
restaurant with no food. Bo is just the one who doesn't know it.

And becuase he doesn't know it, he is the sort that Pirsig is
channelling when he says, "A metaphysics must be divisible, definable
and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics.  Since a metaphysics is
essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is
essentially outside definition, this means that a "Metaphysics of
Quality" is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical
absurdity."

In other words, from the SOM perspective, the MOQ is no true
metaphysics (a logical absurdity in fact), but we already knew that.
However, from the MOQ perspective--using the word "metaphysics" in
Pirsig's retooling of the term--SOM is also a metaphysics of Quality,
since both SOM and Pirsig's MOQ satisfy Pirsig's definition of
metaphysics:

"It's a collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical
structure of thought...that part of philosophy which deals with the
nature and structure of reality."

Marsha:
>Well, in that case I would say the MoQ is a metaphysics that includes within it >four static levels of patterns of which the fourth (top) level is comprised of >intellectual patterns based on a  Subject/Object Metaphysics.

Steve:
Since metaphysics is just a part of philosophy and since philosphy is
only a subset of all intellectual patterns, then all intellectual
patterns are not based on subject/object metaphysics.

Best,
Steve