[MD] Creativity and Philosophology, 1 (from 2005)

[Matt Kundert]

My extended arguments about philosophology, and why I 
feel the need to defend professional discourse, philosophical 
or otherwise, have received what I still think are my best 
efforts attempts to date in my two articles in the moq.org 
Essay Forum, "Philosophologology" and "Pirsig Institutionalized." 
While it may be true that I'm in the process of becoming an 
academic, I'm not sure how illuminating or interesting that is 
to the point I want to make, which, while about the idea of
professionalism, I think bears equally on us amateurs, for we
can't be professionals and experts on everything.

My best, short update to a new environ--the dynamic MD--
however, took place in 2005, in which I tried again to put 
my finger on why Pirsig created the distinction, what people 
want out of it, and why I continue to suggest that we all 
drop it.  So, I'm copy-and-pasting it, partly because I don't 
have too much new and different to say, and partly because 
I always wanted to turn this post series into the second 
sequel of "Philosophologology."  And I think remembering past 
conversants is healthy for the sense of community of the MD.

(from April 12, 2005)
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Steve said:

For me the distinction is obvious.  Doing philosophy amounts 
to being able 
to put together your own argument, doing 
philsophology amounts to reciting 
other people's arguments. 
 It doesn't matter that the problem addressed by 
the 
argument is a perennial problem addressed by many published 
intelligent 
others, or that your argument is based on your 
accumulated experience which 
includes reading all those 
other guys.  Philosophy is a creative endeavor of 
a higher 
order than 'mere' scholarship.  It is the same as original 

composition compared with plagiarism.


MOQ has been depicted as warmed over Zen combine with 
some pragmatism, etc. 
All that doesn't matter.  What 
matters is Pirsig thinking it out and 
experiencing it on his 
own, even if the end concepts are similar in some 
respects 
to other Wisdom Traditions.  It is this internal struggle that 

generates Quality.


Matt: 
I think this misses the point of both Pirsig’s argument and 
my argument.  
Sure, I absolutely agree that philosophy is in 
some respects a personal 
endeavor in which you struggle with 
your own inner demons, but in other 
respects its an 
interpersonal endeavor in which you try and bring everyone 
to 
a higher state of wisdom.  But nobody simply recites somebody 
else’s 
arguments.  A well-worn argument is always being used 
in a slightly 
different context, and so will always be a little 
different (and sometimes a 
lot different, until you bend it so 
out of shape it becomes a new argument).


Since we already have strictures against plagiarism, let’s ask 
this 
question: what if somebody did just recite somebody 
else’s arguments (given 
proper citation and the like)?  What 
if they recited them and the other 
person couldn’t respond 
adequately to them?  What then?  It seems to me that 
you’re 
highlighting a choice between wisdom (denoted by the 
successful 
argument) and cleverness (denoted by the 
creative self-reliance) and 
choosing cleverness.  This seems 
to me to be wrong.  This is why I suggest 
thinking of 
arguments like tools.  Why invent the wheel all over again 
when 
you can just pick it up and modify it for your own 
purposes?  In the end, 
you’re still being clever by the 
modifications and adjustments.  As this 
goes on, though, 
eventually somebody’s going to throw you an argument that 

you have no tools handy for.  Then you create your own 
argument.  To me, it 
all depends on what’s demanded of you.  
Why throw out the Wisdom Traditions 
when some of the stuff 
is still working?  I mean, Pirsig does it all the 
time.  Is he a 
philosophologist?


You say “it is this internal struggle that generates Quality.” 
 But I would 
ask you to reflect on this “internal struggle.”  
What is it?  In Pirsig’s 
terms, it’s the interplay of static 
patterns.  What we call a “person” is 
nothing more than an 
aggregation of static patterns.  These static patterns 
are 
the unconscious history of humanity, as Pirsig calls it in ZMM, 
“the 
whole train of collective consciousness of all 
communicating mankind.” (Ch. 
27)  This is Pirsig owning up to 
the contingency of life.  So when somebody 
comes at you 
with a low Quality static pattern/argument, why not just whip 

at him a higher Quality static pattern/argument?  It’s right 
there, why not 
use it?  And if you’re successful, the other 
person will be at a higher 
level of Quality.  But, again, what 
happens when you are faced with an 
argument that you see 
as low Quality, but you don’t know how to defeat it?  
Well, 
either, upon reflection, you accept it as high Quality or you 
invent a 
higher Quality argument then was previously available 
to the train of 
mankind.  This is what Pirsig would call 
responding to Dynamic Quality.


So, in the end, I think your distinction, Steve, between 
clever creativity 
and mindless repetition isn’t so obvious.  As 
you say, a historian could 
point out that “your argument is 
based on your accumulated experience which 
includes reading 
all those other guys,” which includes pointing out all the 

predecessors to your clever, “new” argument.  I think, 
ultimately, the 
distinction breaks down as a way of 
distinguishing between philosophers and 
non-philosophers. 
 Upon reflection, most of the newness doesn’t last and in 
the 
end, if you line up historically conscious philosophers with 

non-historically conscious philosophers and see which side 
created more 
clever new tools to advance wisdom, I doubt 
you’d find that the 
non-historical side had more.  My guess is 
that the breakdown would be 
pretty even.  And if you push 
this historical/non-historical, 
repetitive/clever distinction too 
far, eventually you’d eliminate the entire 
field of entries 
because, as I’ve repeated and Pirsig’s repeated, we all 
receive 
our history lessons when we are socialized into being human 
beings.  
If you pushed the distinction too far (as you’d have to 
to get it to say 
anything about who is and who isn’t a real 
philosopher), you wouldn’t be 
able to construct _any_ argument,
 let alone a new one, because you’d have no 
basic tools of 
construction—like language.


continued....
-----

Matt

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