[MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig

Tue Jan 17 06:06:48 PST 2006

Ian,

I agree with you. I think it was an attempt to use SOM against itself
- perhaps the same is true of his comment about "fittest" being
subjective. This tactic seems to fall some way short of giving the
reader (or Baggini) any idea of what Pirsig actually believes.

Also, has anyone noticed the static/Dynamic nature of the division
between Baggini's talk of philosophology providing "checks and
balances", and Pirsig's refusal (most of the time) to engage in
philosophology? Perhaps what's needed is some philosophological
static-latching in order to further assert the superiority of Pirsig's
Dynamic leap forward?

Regards,
Mike

On 1/17/06, ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Another excellent post Matt.
>
> I interpret Bob's quote about rhetoric slightly differently - in order
> not to make it seem weird - a kind of cognitive dissonance response I
> guess :-)
>
> The key word is "supposed" - is he just saying that traditionally in
> the eyes of most metaphysicists it's supposed to be (meant to be)
> irrelevant ? Whereas Pirsig's position really is that rhetoric is just
> as relevant as logic ?
>
> Just guessing
> Ian
>
> On 1/17/06, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> > Matt K et al,
> >
> > Good post, and yes, I also thought that remark about rhetoric to be weird. I
> > want to also raise a different issue re philosophology, and that is about
> > Pirsig's dissing Plato with respect to the Sophists by saying that Plato
> > tried to corral the Good by talking of the Idea of the Good. (A side note:
> > in doing so, Pirsig seems to be trying to eat his cake and have it too, that
> > is, he can talk about other philosophers to bolster his argument, but nobody
> > else can to question them. Another inconsistency lies in his talking at one
> > point about metaphysics being metaphorical, and then at the end saying the
> > MOQ has rock-solid foundations). But the point I want to make here is that
> > Pirsig's criticism of Plato is based on a modernist view of ideas, not on a
> > Platonic understanding of them. For modernists (I'm thinking of the Lockean
> > tradition), an idea is something produced in the human mind as a consequence
> > of having a lot of sense impressions. Hence, an idea is a secondary reality,
> > while the contents of the senses are primary. For Plato, of course, ideas
> > are primary, and are primarily external to the human mind (the human only
> > "knows" by participating in an independently existing idea, not by
> > constructing it internally). Thus, when Plato speaks of the Idea of the
> > Good, he is referring to what he takes to be the *real* Good (the permanent,
> > eternal Good) as opposed to the transient goods of everyday life. The
> > significance of this is that what Plato was up to is the same thing that
> > mystics say to do: don't be attached to the impermanent.
> >
> > Thus, Pirsig is making a philosophologiical mistake, in that he is judging
> > Plato anachronistically, using a modernist's idea of idea rather than
> > Plato's, and thus misses Plato's basically mystical message. Plotinus, after
> > all, had no problem with calling himself a Platonist.
> >
> > - Scott
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
> > To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
> > Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 5:03 PM
> > Subject: Re: [MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig
> >
> >
> > David,
> >
> > David said:
> > Don't you think a chat about substance was a very bad idea by JB?
> >
> > Matt:
> > No, not really.  Baggini was beginning an elaboration of Pirsig's philosophy
> > to establish some bridges between Pirsig and other philosophers, to help
> > people understand what Pirsig is up to, where he falls on the philosophical
> > map.  He was using substance in a fairly wide sense, as "fundamental
> > constituent of the universe."  Now, on the one hand, pragmatists should
> > eschew the question of "fundamental constituents."  But on the other hand I
> > think one can answer the question suitably enough from the point of view of
> > the person asking the bad question.  How many substances?  One, just as
> > Pirsig said, "'Quality' or 'value' is the fundamental constituent of the
> > universe."  As I said a little while ago, from a metaphysical standpoint
> > (the standpoint that makes deep cuts in reality, like between mind/matter,
> > subject/object, God/man, etc.) pragmatism will look like a monism because
> > they deny deep cuts.  Reality is smooth, not riven with cuts and slashes or
> > joints (though it isn't so much smooth as it is bumpy).
> >
> > Pirsig didn't answer that way because he'd already gotten defensive and
> > combative.  I think he was being needlessly paradoxical and unhelpful on
> > this point.  Granted, I'm not sure Baggini phrased the question all that
> > well, but I think Pirsig got hung up on a side issue.  For instance, the
> > classification of monism, dualism, and pluralism isn't arbitrary.  It's to
> > the point.  It's a tool to aid comprehension.  It didn't help that Pirsig,
> > after advancing Quality as the basic substance, then promptly denied that
> > there were substances.  Granted, Pirsig was right to deny the question of
> > substance or "fundamental constituent of the universe" when he said there
> > was no basic substance, that the Buddhist's call it no-thingness.  But
> > Pirsig wasn't explicating what he thinks very well by suggesting that the
> > MoQ is a monism, that the question of "Monism, dualism, or pluralism?" is a
> > bad one, and that the MoQ is a monism, dualism, _and_ pluralism in
> > successive breaths.  There are ways to use paradox to create bombast, the
> > impression of an explosion.  But there are times when the appearance of
> > paradox just breeds confusion.
> >
> > I know a lot of people thought the appearance of Spinoza in the discussion
> > was out of left field, and it kinda' was.  On the other hand, its uncanny
> > for me.  I have a bunch of files on my computer of topics and ideas about
> > Pirsig to look into.  One of the earliest was "Pirsig and Spinoza."  It's on
> > there almost entirely because I was taking Modern Philosophy at the same
> > time that I started researching Pirsig to write a paper on him in my
> > Contemporary Philosophy class.  Now if I wrote down every damn fool
> > connection I thought of I'd have several zip disks full of files.  But back
> > then I didn't have that much to go on and the similarities between Spinoza
> > and Pirsig struck me for pretty much the exact same reason that Baggini
> > brought up Spinoza: instead of thinking that God is our eternal Other (thus
> > breeding metaphysical divides that are hard to reconcile), Spinoza took
> > Nature and Man and made them both facets of God.  The effects, of course,
> > aren't exactly as Spinoza planned them.  Like idealism, once you make a
> > monism, pragmatism starts to look better and better (my paper on Spinoza
> > that semester was called "God: Now 100% All-Natural").
> >
> > The thing that I think bogged down the conversation was both Baggini's
> > understandable puzzlement over Pirsig's reticence to place himself in the
> > philosophical tradition and Pirsig's then strange continued insistence on
> > the revolutionary aspect of his thought.  This is the philosophology
> > controversy and I think Pirsig is at least as complicit in it as Baggini.
> > Obviously, I agree with Baggini that there is a problem with Pirsig's
> > distinction between philosophy and philosophology.  But I also agree with
> > Baggini that there are ways to use the distinction that do shed light on the
> > area.
> >
> > One of the things that I learned early on in engaging Pirsig's philosophy is
> > that the status of Pirsig's originality swings free from the status of
> > Pirsig's arguments and theses being any good.  One way to formulate the
> > distinction between philosophy and philosophology is between the assertion
> > of philosophical theses and intellectual history.  This means that the
> > difference between doing philosophy and doing philosophology is the
> > difference between able to tell whether a thesis, or position, or argument
> > is any _good_ and being able to tell if its _original_.
> >
> > This means that when Pirsig says that his philosophy is original or
> > revolutionary _he_ is doing philosophology.  This also means that I think
> > Pirsig himself is distracting attention away from where he thinks attention
> > should be paid: the merit of his arguments, not their relations to others.
> > When Pirsig claims that his philosophy is original or revolutionary he is
> > making a claim that he has no intention of backing up.  From Pirsig's own
> > point of view, to back up that claim would be besides the point, so he
> > doesn't feel the need to bother with it.  But Pirsig baits the trail by his
> > continued insistence on these claims and so distracts his interlocuters.  I
> > surely doubt Pirsig does this on purpose, but by baiting the trail he opens
> > up space to berate his interlocuter from missing his point by focusing on
> > philosophology instead of philosophy.
> >
> > If there's any truth in Erin's remark that she thinks I should have done the
> > interview (and this would probably be the only small kernel of truth to it),
> > its that I know better than to talk about intellectual history with Pirsig.
> > I wouldn't have gotten bogged down in this.  Pressing him on points of
> > originality _are_ besides the point.  Granted, I think there is a lot to be
> > learned by seeing Pirsig in relation to the philosophical tradition, East or
> > West, but any relationships brought up need to be about elucidating Pirsig's
> > philosophy and arguments, what they are saying, not on how new what he's
> > saying is.
> >
> > Matt
> >
> > p.s. Does Pirsig saying, "in philosophy rhetorical styles are supposed to be
> > irrelevant to the truth" strike anybody else as incredibly weird for Pirsig
> > to say?
> >
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