[MD] What does Pirsig mean by metaphysics?

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Andre,



On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Andre Broersen <andrebroersen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
> I have been away a few days and upon return found some 20 Issues
> waiting for me (this means anything b/w 100-140 posts) so do not know
> if you have considered the quotes I dug up in the archives ( an
> exchange between Paul Turner and Bodvar). It seems to be related to
> the subject matter of your letter to Mr. Pirsig:
>
> "The Vedanta of the Hindus, the Way of the Taoists, even the Buddha
> had  been described as an absolute monism similar to Hegel's
> philosophy.  Phædrus doubted at the time, however, whether mystical
> Ones and  metaphysical monisms were introconvertable since mystical
> Ones follow no  rules and metaphysical monisms do. His Quality was a
> metaphysical  entity, not a mystic one. Or was it? What was the
> difference?
>
> He answered himself that the difference was one of definition.
> Metaphysical entities are defined. Mystical Ones are not. That made
> Quality mystical. No. It was really both. Although he'd thought of it
> purely in philosophical terms up to now as metaphysical, he had all
> along refused to define it. That made it mystic too. Its indefinability
> freed it from the rules of metaphysics." [ZMM Ch.20]
>
> Like Buddhist philosophy, the MOQ gives intellectual (or metaphysical)
> meaning to the place of non-intellectual (or mystical) experience in our
> lives without devouring it with concepts. It doesn't reject one for the
> other and it never claims to actually be the reality it describes.
>
> This comment from Pirsig taken from "The Role of Evolution, Time and
> Order in Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality" by Ant McWatt is maybe
> worth  bearing in mind:
> "The purpose of the description of 'Dynamic Quality' as 'the continually
> changing flux of immediate reality' is to block the notion that Dynamic
> Quality is some kind of object. To try to take that definition as some
> kind of philosophic object itself is to pervert the purpose for which
> the statement was intended."
>
> Hope this clarifies things for you.


Steve:
It doesn't really, but it is a good idea to consider how the word
metaphysics is used in ZAMM as well. Do you think that Pirsig means
something different by the term "metaphysics" when he describes his
philospohical system as "a metaphysics" from what is traditionally meant by
the term?

Best,
Steve