[MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig

[Michael Hamilton]

One thing in Pirsig's defense, though: Baggini's article is somewhat
unfair, because in it Baggini gives judgements about the exchange, to
which Pirsig is not allowed to respond. For instance, I said that I
agreed with Baggini's response to Pirsig's argument about "fittest"
being subjective. I still think it's a dodgy argument, but, on second
inspection, so is Baggini's response: "The problem with that reply is
that though "fittest" may appear to be an evaluative term, for
evolutionists it is no such thing, but simply describes how well an
organism is able to survive in the environment it finds itself." Had
Pirsig been given the chance to respond to this, he would have given
the argument from Lila that, by this definition "survival of the
fittest" reduces to "survival of the survivors", and thus made a
convincing point on the subject which, as things stand, is sadly
missing. So, more frustration.

Regards,
Mike

On 1/12/06, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Ian
>
> Thanks very much for bringing this to everybody's attention. It's
> always good to have more Pirsig to read, although in this case my
> enjoyment was laced with a heavy dose of frustration. I think he
> really shoots himself in the foot on two occasions.
>
> Firstly: his response to the question about evolution, which is rather
> short and dismissive, basically giving credence to Baggini's
> accusation that "LILA ... often ... dismisses or solves ideas rather
> brusquely". The one argument Pirsig gives, about "fittest" being a
> subjective term, looks extremely dodgy, and I agree with Baggini's
> response. This was a bad waste of an opportunity to demonstrate the
> explanatory power of the MOQ.
>
> Secondly: his response to the query about Spinoza. I think Pirsig
> should have either looked into Spinoza's philosophy (perhaps with
> Ant's help) in order to give some kind of satisfying response, or just
> refrained from making any judgement about Spinoza at all. His
> dismissive response again gives credence to Baggini's accusation of
> brusqueness, and just leads to embarrassment and withdrawal anyway. He
> then asserts the pointlessness of classifying metaphysics into monisms
> and dualisms, which was never going to get him anywhere in a
> discussion like this.
>
> The especially frustrating thing is that, at the end of the interview,
> it's clear that Baggini still doesn't have much of a clue what the MOQ
> is about. This is especially clear from his bemusement that Quality is
> the fundamental constituent of the universe and yet not a substance,
> and his bemusement about literal and metaphorical truth. I agree with
> Pirsig that Baggini didn't ask any of the right questions, but perhaps
> the most damaging thing was the prickly way in which Pirsig responded
> to these questions. On balance, his responses were more negative than
> positive.
>
> Damn.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
> On 1/12/06, ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hi MoQ'ers,
> >
> > You should be aware of this if you are not already.
> > http://www.philosophersnet.com/magazine/article.php?id=980
> >
> > As Julian Baggini's title "Zen and the Art of Dialogue" alludes -
> > there was really a breakdown in communication and they were talking
> > past each other (via e-mail)
> >
> > However Julian summarises
> > "I think both books reveal an author of exceptional intelligence and
> > insight," I wrote. "However, I do feel that in seeking to build an
> > all-encompassing system to connect all these insights, we end up with
> > a whole which is less than the sum of its parts. Perhaps this does
> > little more than reflect the extent to which my own thinking has been
> > affected (or infected) with the anti-metaphysical bias of recent
> > Anglo-American philosophy. But I don't think it is just that. I think
> > rather that it connects to the above point about philosophology. You
> > have not allowed yourself to be constrained by other philosophers,
> > which has given you the benefit of more freedom and more originality.
> > But constraints also provide checks and balances, and without them, I
> > fear you've constructed a system on foundations that are not up to the
> > job of supporting it."
> >
> > "The foundations are okay, in fact they are rock-solid, but we never
> > got to discuss them," Bob replied.
> >
> > Interesting reading (the entire transcript notice as well as the article).
> > Ian
> > moq_discuss mailing list
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>