[MD] Where does logic itself belong inside the MOQ?

[Krimel]

> [Steve]
> Pirsig has stated the Metaphysics of Quality is a placeholder for the
> philosphical system created by Robert M Pirsig.
>
> >From the Baggini interview:
> PIRSIG: The alternative to "The Metaphysics of Quality says," would be
> "I, Robert Pirsig, says," and that repeated many times sounds worse to
> me.
>
> [Krimel]
> Then I return to Barthes argument that Pirsig's works speak for themselves
> and whatever he says about them now, has no more authority than what you 
> or I or Bo says.

Steve:
You've referenced an argument that someone has made, but you haven't
supplied the argument. Can you explain? I'm not sure that it will
apply to an author's philosophical system as well as to a work of
fiction.

[Krimel]
Barthes speaks most directly to issues in literary and cultural criticism
but like Derrida's work in this field, I think, it does extend to "texts" in
general. Not to mention the fact the Pirsig's books are presented as
literary works of fiction. (Just a side note on this; when I listen to
Pirsig speak, in real interviews and on Ant's videos, I think he is most
eloquent and passionate when he is talking about the process of writing.)

Barthes is addressing the common cultural practice of seeking the meaning of
a text in the biography of the author,

"... the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is
tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes,
his passions; criticism still consists, most of the time, in saying that
Baudelaire's work is the failure of the man Baudelaire, Van Gogh's work his
madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice: the explanation of the work is always
sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less
transparent allegory of fiction, it was always finally the voice of one and
the same person, the author, which delivered his "confidence." 

One might add Pirsig's madness to Van Gogh's.

Barthes further argues that focusing on the individual person of the author
ignores the wider context of the culture that author is writing for and
about. 

"We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single
"theological" meaning (the "message" of the Author-God), but is a space of
many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing,
no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting
from the thousand sources of culture."

I think Barthes view is on target when it comes to the idea that the MoQ
"belongs" to Pirsig. You seem to be the reigning quotemeister of this forum
at the moment. I'll bet if you look at the introduction of Lila's Child you
will find Pirsig asserting his unwillingness to assert such "authority."

Barthes aside, if we are to argue that Pirsig's writing are the only
legitimate expression of the MoQ, where does that leave us with respect to
say pragmatism? Is Peirce the only legitimate spokesman? Are arguments among
pragmatists only resolvable through reference to Peirce, The Author? 

[Steve]
I think the problem here is that "his works" that speak for themselves
include whatever he has said about his previous work. For example,
"his works" include his responses in the Baggini interview and his
comments in Lila's Child, don't they? It would seem very strange to me
to suggest that what Pirsig, the creator of the Metaphysics of
Quality, says he means by "the Metaphysics of Quality" is irrelevant
to the Metaphysics of Quality.

[Krimel]
I think what Barthes argues for in the "Death of the Author" is the birth of
the reader. 

"...the reader is the very space in which are inscribed, without any being
lost, all the citations a writing consists of; the unity of a text is not in
its origin, it is in its destination; but this destination can no longer be
personal: the reader is a man without history, without biography, without
psychology; he is only that someone who holds gathered into a single field
all the paths of which the text is constituted."

The reader's engagement in and participation with the text, keeps a text
alive and gives it ongoing meaning. When we readers comment on a text, we do
so by becoming "authors" of commentary. When Pirsig comments on "his" texts
he does so on a more or less equal footing with other reader/commentators.
Again as a reader of Pirsig's comments along these lines I, in the act of
becoming the author of comment, do not see him disagreeing.

Finally, I think Barthes article actually resonates with the MoQ:

"Once the Author is gone, the claim to "decipher" a text becomes quite
useless. To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop
clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing."

Or to employ the language of the MoQ, to render its quality completely
static.