[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[plattholden at gmail.com]

On 21 Jun 2010 at 13:06, Arlo Bensinger wrote:

> [Andre]
> Mr. Pirsig did NOT regard 'intellect = the S/O distinction' in ZMM!
> 
> [Platt]
> The hell he didn't. Check out his discussion of the two horns of the 
> subject-object dilemma presented by English department intellectuals 
> at Bozeman.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Andre is correct (as usual). You are mistaking the dominant 
> intellectual pattern of Western culture, which Pirsig WAS combatting, 
> with the entirety of the intellectual level. Pirsig has said outright 
> he does NOT consider "intellect=SOM". You can disagree him, for sure, 
> and you can support Bo's MOQ over Pirsig's MOQ, but you can not say 
> Pirsig regards "intellect=S/O distinction" when it is clear he did 
> not, nor does not.

Andre is wrong (as usual). Perhaps you'll recall that Pirsig cautioned us not 
to take his Johnny-come-lately definition of intellect as a "Papal Bull. It is 
also clear in his description of the MOQ in Lila that he believed it was the 
intellectual level that was "screwing everything up," hardly a result of a 
"manipulation of language-derived symbols" unless you include everything 
humankind has done since its inception as "screwing everything up."

If you consider the intellectual level as the home of every idea ever 
conceived, you rip the heart out of the MOQ and kill its liberating 
significance.

Platt 



Platt
 

 

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