[Moq_Discuss] [MD] Aristotle & DQ

[MarshaV]

From, 'A brief summary of the Metaphysics of Quality'
by Robert Pirsig October 2005

"The Metaphysics of Quality, or MOQ, is simply a philosophic answer 
to the question of what is Quality, or worth, or merit, or value, or 
betterness or any of the other synonyms for good. There are many 
possible answers but the one the MOQ gives is that you can understand 
Quality best if you don't subordinate it to anything else but instead 
subordinate everything else to it.

It says there are two basic kinds of Quality, an undefined Quality 
called Dynamic Quality, and a defined quality called static quality. 
Static quality is further divided into four evolutionary divisions: 
inorganic, biological, social and intellectual. Our entire 
understanding of the world can be organized within this framework. 
When you do so things fall into place that were poorly defined 
before, and new things appear that were concealed under previous 
frameworks of understanding. The MOQ is not intended to deny previous 
modes of understanding as much as to expand them into a more 
inclusive picture of what it's all about.

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."

http://robertpirsig.org/MOQSummary.htm