[MD] Pirsig, Peirce and Philosophologology re-establishing pragmatism

[Ron Kulp]

Matt,
I have read your essay, and it seemed to me a formal academic appraisal
of
Pirsigs work. To me Robert Pirsigs is not anti establisment or
anti-authoratarian
But perhaps anti-elitist 
Pirsigs focus is on knowledge cemented with first hand information. 
Of course he does not appeal to the elite academics, the inquiry was
into 
Average everyday accepted norms And social perception. 
He presents this inquiry from a mechanics Viewpoint.
The cycle you work on is the cycle of your mind (us older Harley
Owners know what this means) you are always working on your bike is 
What it means. 
Pirsig wrote from the craftsman stand point, working with your
Hands, participating in the "quality" process, caring, using words like 
"Gumption traps" infusing learned classical knowledge with practical
learned
Hands-on experience. No substitute. It all is a process of caring Fusing
thought with matter.

Call it zeitgeist but Bob was the voice of a generation nailing it right
on the head
About what the problem was of the time. Taking a good hard practical
look
At why things are the way they are in these United States of America.  
Comparatively little that is known in any one age continues to be 
Regarded as unquestionable fact by later generations it is virtually
certain that our age
Will be no exception. He wanted to take some of the "formal" out of
formal education.


One gets the idea the formal academics here really do not care for what
one 
Might consider the philosopher/mechanics (pragmatists), the people
getting their hands dirty
Employing his use of scientific method and the avoidance of "gumption
traps"
disassembling and diagnosing system failure it 'is in this approach he
took on SOM
And arrived at MOQ. Using mechanics terms, MOQ is SOM with its head out
of its own ass.

C.S. Pierce like Pirsig, asserts that knowledge is not a body of
certainties but
A body of explanations and the growth of our scientific knowledge does
not
 Consist in adding new certainties to a body of existing ones, it
consists in
Replacing existing explanations with better explanations.
Perhaps Peirce's central contention is that knowledge
Is an activity. We are moved to enquire, to want to know, by some need
or lack or doubt.
This leads us to evaluate our problem-situation, to try to see what in
the situation
That is wrong, or missing and ways in which that might be put right.
This scheme applies
Even if our problem is a purely theoretic one and it applies to both
everyday life and
The sciences. The application of intelligence is primarily evaluative
and is aimed
At achieving understanding. Knowledge consists of valid explanations.
Pierces
First important paper was called "How to make our Ideas clear"(1878) and
in it he argued 
that to understand a term clearly we should ask ourselves what
difference it's application 
would make to our evaluation of our problem-situation, or of a proposed
Solution to it. That difference constitutes the terms meaning, thus a
term whose application 
makes no difference has no ascertainable meaning. "Pragmatism"
Was put forward as a method  for ascertaining the meaning of terms thus
we can say
A theory of meaning.


 Pisrigs work is about Perception. Original thought, he's not saying get
rid of academics! 
You paint him as Sort of a intellectual Pol Pot the Khmer rouge of
philosophy, he only 
asserted that The learning not be limited there. Thought is a tool used
on the cycle of 
the self, the type of tool needed requires the proper patterns of value
to successfully 
and accurately achieve your aims. It's like giving you a drivers
liscence when all you
Demonstrated is how to build a car not operate one.


To compare him to any philosopher is comparing apples to pineapples.

If you want to call Pirsig a pragmatist then he is of the most orthodox
And practical of Pragmatists.

I feel your essay's took pragmatism to the extreme for extremes sake.
And mistook Pirsig as attacking professionalism when it was more a
comment on
Arrogance and sloppy thinking.

But that's just my opinion.

-x