[MD] Chance

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, David --


> Sure, there are opinions about Quality that the author may not endorse
> but I think the author intended the word to be very broadly applied.
> It is pervasive enough to include everything. It seems to me that reading
> the MOQ by way of the very terms it rejects and this naturally leads to 
> confusion...

Your second sentence omits either a noun or a verb to make it clear, but I 
take it to mean that I have "read into" the MoQ those "very terms it 
rejects", to which I can only plead nolo contendere.  That Pirsig omitted 
the fundamental concepts of his metaphysics is my major complaint.

> Maybe its better to think of quality (all kinds) in terms of experience
> rather than ontological terms. There are some philosophers who
> believe the quest to establish some kind of ground or source behind
> what's known in experience is the worst kind of wild goose chase.
> I mean, the MOQ is not "left without a metaphysical foundation"
> because of some oversight. Its a deliberate choice.

Well, what can I add?  If he's deliberately chosen to posit a theory without 
a metaphysical foundation, we're all the worse for it, aren't we?.

> The "incomprehensible relation" between static and dynamic quality,
> for example, evaporates when you see that both terms refer to experience.

If DQ is meant to be only experience, then what he's expounded isn't 
metaphysics at all.  It's a euphemistic paradigm for experiential reality 
(i.e., finitude).

> Likewise, the refusal to define DQ doesn't come from a disrespect
> for logic or rational arguments. That refusal is itself a statement about
> what DQ is. Its also a statement about the limits of logic and rational
> argument. And again, this would be about two different kinds of
> experience. Classical Pragmatists like Dewey and James are like
> Pirsig in taking non-rational experience to be just as real as any other
> kind. They're radical empiricists. Experience and reality are the same
> thing and it is neither possible nor desirable to look for 
> extra-experiential
> realities or metaphysical fictions. So, there are good reasons why you
> will find no "metaphysical foundation" in the MOQ. (Unless experience
> counts as a foundation.)

Ditto, the above.

> Your critique of the MOQ looks like a Catholic guy criticizing a
> Protestant for not being Catholic enough. The Protestant would
> just chuckle and and say, "Yea, I know. That's pretty much the
> point of being Protestant".

Fair enough.  I'm a free-thinking, self-educated philosopher without a 
curriculum vitae who finds a celebrated author's Metaphyics of Quality 
intentionally lacking a metaphysical foundation.  Is my complaint justified?

I'd say you've made my case.

Thanks, David.

--Ham