[MD] Precursor’s to Pirsig’s Metaphysics (been a bibliophile)

[Robert Robinson]

Hi Everyone:(I've been searching literature for precusors to Pirsig's MOQ and his philosophy). What other folks does this group propose...??
   
  In searching for precursor’s to Pirsig’s Metaphysics one ought to consider Henri Bergson. “Time and Free Will, 1889”.
   PRINCIPAL IDEAS ADVANCED
  It is inappropriate to limit thought to spatial concepts: time, in particular, should not be conceived of as extension.
  Time is duration, and duration may very well be nothing but succession of qualitative changes permeating each other.
   
  It is misleading to conceive of dynamic matters by the use of static concepts.
   
  In giving accounts of aesthetic feelings or sensations, philosophers often attempt to describe qualitative changes in a quantitative fashion.
   
  Space is the material with which mind builds up the conception of number, but the sensations by means of which we form the idea of space are themselves unextended  and qualitative, not quantitative. 
   
  A self of pure duration is not subject to the distinctions which are imposed upon the self considered symbolically; the self is free when its acts spring from the whole personality.
   
  DISCUSSION:
   
  Bergson’s problem (free fill) is common to both metaphysics and psychology, and he begins by trying to point out a confusion of duration with extension, which has complicated the treatment of the problem of free will.
   
  Bergson studies duration and begins by breaking down the concept of number into a synthesis of the one and the many. Space is the material with which mind builds up number, the medium in which the mind places objects.
   
  Ultimately, Bergson finds two kinds of multiplicity: that of material objects, to which the conception of number may be applied; and the multiplicity of states of consciousness. The latter cannot be thought of as numerical without the help of some symbolic representation, and in this a necessary element is space. But now we ask, has duration anything to do with space? It could be that space comes in as a later addition. The sensations by means of which we form the notion of space are themselves unextended and simply qualitative—this is the most likely hypothesis.
   
  In actuality, space is that enables us to distinguish a number of identical and simultaneous sensations from one another. It is a principle of differentiation but not a qualitative one. Consequently, it is a reality with no quality.
   
  Dynamism is what Bergson prefers, and this starts from the idea of voluntary activity, given by consciousness. (Mechanism takes the opposite path.) The self experiences a first feeling and, according to the dynamic theory, has already changed to a slight extent when the second feeling takes its place. In this way a dynamic series of states is formed which permeates and strengthens the feeling states which are its members. Freedom depends on such a series. We are free, Bergson say, when our acts spring from our whole personality. Our acts express our personality. They have that indefinable resemblance to it which one sometimes finds to exist between an artist and his work. The believer in free will assumes that the same series of antecedents could issue in several different acts, all equally possible.
   
  For Bergson freedom must be sought in a certain shade or quality of the action itself and not in the relation of this act to what it is not or to what it might have been. There are two ways of assimilating antecedent events, the one dynamic and the other static

   
  Bergson thus used his famous doctrine of conscious time as flowing from a primitive apprehension of undivided duration. By his doctrine he attempted to release causal action from the grip of mechanical regulation and to place the source for free acts in a consciousness ultimately free from space and its rigid divisions. In Time and Free Will Bergson thus argues for an undivided duration behind conscious states and normal distinctions and thereby leaves an area for spontaneity and free decision in psychic states if not in physical matter.
   
  A Bergson Commentator Levi, Albert William. Philosophy and the Modern World, 1959. Presented in an essay’s ideas is that it locates Bergson’s thought in relation to preceding and succeeding philosophies. (R. Descartes’ philosophy). He also comments on how Bergson’s important distinction between “time by the clock” and “time lived” preceded similar distinctions made by B. Russell, Eddington, and A. N. Whitehead.
   
  Levi’s book is a very sound work and deserves to be read with care. His treatment of Bergson’s thought will be of great assistance to anyone who desires to understand Bergson’s major contributions to philosophy. 
   
   For what is worth,
  Robbie


  

Hi Ian,

I had my children when I was very young. I too thought I'd be 
working forever. Sometimes things change drastically at the snap of 
a finger. I retired when I had no responsibilities left except 
myself. I've been learning over the past few years how little I need 
and never regret quitting.

I must tell you, though, I loved working with computers. It was 
management and the corporate environment that drove me towards 
insanity. The computer work was always a wonderful challenge.

Marsha



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