[MD] Truth and the Linguistic Turn

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Right. "But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the 
primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat 
and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed." (Lila, 5)

I like Pirsig's description -- "absolutely certain."  Postmodernists 
would rather die than write those words, indicating Pirsig is no 
postmodernist.

[Arlo]
Which only proves how truly ignorant you are of the Great Evils you 
squalk against.

But let's consider this. "Absolutely certain"? Firewalkers routinely 
walk across burning embers and do not find the event "low quality", 
indeed they would describe it as a "high quality" experience. Many 
people across the globe subject themselves willingly to "pain", to 
things that others might call "low quality", from piercings to 
brandings. We can also interject the case of people with no nerve 
sensations. They could sit on the stove until they died of burn 
wounds and never have a "low quality" perception of the stove.

What Pirsig is referring to here is "from the vantage point of that 
particular person" they determine that the event is absolutely low 
quality. It says nothing about "all people and all times". Yes, a 
person who finds that event "low quality" will be "absolutely" sure 
of it. But all this does is show completely that its all relative.

And considering the end of this very sentance, " from which such 
things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually 
constructed", I'd say this firmly places Pirsig into the 
"Postmodernist" camp (not that I think there is such a "camp", but 
Pirsig aligns strongly with what many so-called "postmodern" writers 
have been saying, especially in that "our intellectual description of 
nature is always culturally derived" and "we are suspended in language".)