[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Mary]

Nice post, Matt!

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Matt Kundert
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 1:05 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
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
 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Your E-mail and More On-the-Go. Get Windows Live Hotmail Free.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390709/direct/01/
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/