[MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig

[Ham Priday]

Matt and Scott, et al --

Your exchange of 1/16 provides some of the most insightful analysis I've
seen on the MD -- and I say this knowing full well that you are both
philosophologizing!

The fact that this high-level dialogue was inspired by an interview of your
intellectual Master by an "outsider" demonstrates a maxim I've learned in my
three years in this forum: the quickest way to assess the soundness of a
philosophy is to have it critiqued by someone outside the "inner circle".
This is where Matt's analytical approach is most appropriate.  Churning
around inbred ideas and propositions may provide recreational pleasure for
the group participants, but there's nothing like getting a reaction from the
outside.  ('Evaluation from the outside' has particular appeal to me because
it is the metaphysical paradigm of Essentialism.)

Apart from singling out some oddball remarks like "rhetorical styles are
supposed to be
irrelevant to the truth", Matt seems to feel that Pirsig covered his bases
when pressed for more information on the fundamental MoQ constituents.

[Matt]:
> 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).

With the exception of Matt's parenthetical allusion to Reality as "bumpy", I
think this is a very fair analysis of the "findamental constituents"
question.  (Any "bumps" in Reality are a result of human intellection, not
primary attributes of the undifferentiated source as defined by either
Spinoza or Pirsig.)

However, I think that Pirsig's disenchantment with the interviewer's line of
questioning caused him to miss a golden opportunity to elaborate on the MoQ
fundamentals.

BAGGINI: Of course, many systems have pairs, trios, quartets and so forth of
concepts. But it seems perfectly reasonable to classify metaphysical systems
as monist or dualist on the basis of how many basic substances they believe
the universe most fundamentally comprises.

PIRSIG: The "Quality" of the Metaphysics of Quality is not a basic
substance, or anything like it. The Buddhists call it "nothingness"
precisely to avoid that kind of intellectual characterization. Once you
start to define Quality as a basic substance you are off on a completely
different path from the MOQ.

I was astonished by the author's admission that when his wife prompted him
to "tell Baggini what the Metaphysics of Quality says," his lame reply was:
"Why doesn't Baggini ask?"

I am also disappointed that the author chose to slight the ontological
classification by which most philosophical theories are compared.  Pirsig's
response to Baggini here was inadequate, in my opinion.

PIRSIG: You are correct in saying that the revolutionary assertion of the
Metaphysics of Quality is that "Quality" or "value" is the fundamental
constituent of the universe. However, the classification of metaphysics into
monism, dualism and pluralism, seems to me to be an arbitrary classification
where none is needed.

Surely something as empirically evident as the pluralism of the universe
should be accounted for in a philosophical thesis, even if the author
considers such classification "arbitrary" or wrong.  Pirsig seems to be
oblivious of the fact that his thesis will -- indeed, must -- be compared
with other philosophies if it is to achieve proper recognition.

Scott has brought out an instructive "philosophological" point having to do
with ideas in the "modernist" sense as opposed to ideas in the Platonic or
classical tradition:

[Scott]:
> 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.

Good work, gentlemen.  I think this critique of Pirsig's philosophy from the
outside has provided a more realistic perspective of its strengths and
shortcomings, which can only sharpen the focus of these discussions.

Having been thus refurbished, back to the fray!

Ham