[MD] Creativity and Philosophology, 2 (from 2005)

[david buchanan]

Matt said said to Steve:
You might say this is a transcendental consideration about the possibility of philosophy.  The question I would ask is, "How would we know what counts as a 'philosophical' question, as opposed to other types of questions, if they weren't the kinds of questions asked by _philosophers_?"  This is a paradoxical question for me to ask, because it supposes that we _need to demarcate philosophy from other disciplines_ before we can do it.
And likewise, Matt said in Part IB:
"I think Pirsig believes that there are certain kinds of problems, roughly those grouped under the mantle of the “traditional problems of philosophy,” that one will always encounter simply by virtue of existing, that the horse will always be available for examination. It is by making the traditional problems of philosophy studied in philosophy classes analogous to the spatiotemporal beliefs generated by babies that Pirsig creates a situation in which one can sit atop a mountain and be certain of being able to generate beliefs that are relevant to great philosophers like Kant and Descartes. This is how Pirsig can distinguish between philosophy's history and philosophy's substance. He can do this because he believes it possible to simply reflect on existence and come up with, e.g., beliefs about how we could be free in a cause and effect world."

dmb says:

If we take your first point about the paradoxical nature of the question and convert it to the music/musicology distinction, I think it exposes a weakness in your first point. How would we know what counts as music, as opposed to other types of sounds, if it wasn't the kind of sound studied by musicologists? I mean, music is defined by what musicians do and when they do something sufficiently innovative that definition will change accordingly. The same goes for philosophy. It's defined by what philosophers do. Or rather I should say the boundries are determined by them and verbal definitions and the various isms and categories are then applied as abstractions retroactively. 
As to your second point, I think you're turning the philosopher/philosophologist distinction into something like an ignorant-hack-navel-gazer/well-informed professional distinction. This would be something like a contest between insufficient static patterns and a rich palate of static patterns, in which case the professional would certainly be at an advantage. But the distinction is not that kind of contest, of course. It about adding some life and blood to competence. It's about going beyond the existing static patterns, dynamically. This goes way beyond "clever", a word I tend to use as reference to things that are superficially intelligent. It's a word I'd contrast with "wisdom". 
If we put both points together, the central thrust seems to be about whether or not the philosopher is engaged with the so-called traditional questions and problems. But in Pirsig's case, for example, he sought answers in the history of philosophy only after his question emerged. He was hoping he'd find others who addressed the same sort of question among previous thinkers but he was not motivated by them to ask it. I mean, sometimes, especially among the original thinkers, the question they're asking is one that never really occurred to anyone before and sometimes that's because the question just came up. In Pirsig's case, his personal struggles and the nation's cultural clashes were enough alike that addressing the former meant addressing the latter. Check out this passage from the end of ZAMM's chapter 14:
" After the party is over and the Sutherlands and Chris have gone to bed, DeWeese recalls my lecture, however. He says seriously, "What you said about the rotisserie instructions was interesting."
Gennie adds, also seriously, "It sounded like you had been thinking about it for a long time."
"I've been thinking about concepts that underlie it for twenty years," I say.
Beyond the chair in front of me, sparks fly up the chimney, drawn by the wind outside, now stronger than before.
I add, almost to myself, "You look at where you're going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you've been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something.
"All that talk about technology and art is part of a pattern that seems to have emerged from my own life. It represents a transcendence from something I think a lot of others may be trying to transcend."
"What's that?"
"Well, it isn't just art and technology. It's a kind of a noncoalescence between reason and feeling. What's wrong with technology is that it's not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and of the heart. And so it does blind, ugly things quite by accident and gets hated for that. People haven't paid much attention to this before because the big concern has been with food, clothing and shelter for everyone and technology has provided these.
"But now where these are assured, the ugliness is being noticed more and more and people are asking if we must always suffer spiritually and esthetically in order to satisfy material needs. Lately it's become almost a national crisis...antipollution drives, antitechnological communes and styles of life, and all that."
Both DeWeese and Gennie have understood all this for so long there's no need for comment, so I add, "What's emerging from the pattern of my own life is the belief that the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can't be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem. The only ones who're solving it are solving it at a personal level by abandoning `square' rationality altogether and going by feelings alone. Like John and Sylvia here. And millions of others like them. And that seems like a wrong direction too. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn't that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it's capable of coming up with a solution."
"I guess I don't know what you mean," Gennie says.
"Well, it's quite a bootstrap operation. It's analogous to the kind of hang-up Sir Isaac Newton had when he wanted to solve problems of instantaneous rates of change. It was unreasonable in his time to think of anything changing within a zero amount of time. Yet it's almost necessary mathematically to work with other zero quantities, such as points in space and time that no one thought were unreasonable at all, although there was no real difference. So what Newton did was say, in effect, `We're going to presume there's such a thing as instantaneous change, and see if we can find ways of determining what it is in various applications.' The result of this presumption is the branch of mathematics known as the calculus, which every engineer uses today. Newton invented a new form of reason. He expanded reason to handle infinitesimal changes and I think what is needed now is a similar expansion of reason to handle technological ugliness. The trouble is that the expansion has to be made at the roots, not at the branches, and that's what makes it hard to see.
"We're living in topsy-turvy times, and I think that what causes the topsy-turvy feeling is inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal with new experiences. I've heard it said that the only real learning results from hang-ups, where instead of expanding the branches of what you already know, you have to stop and drift laterally for a while until you come across something that allows you to expand the roots of what you already know. Everyone's familiar with that. I think the same thing occurs with whole civilizations when expansion's needed at the roots.
"You look back at the last three thousand years and with hindsight you think you see neat patterns and chains of cause and effect that have made things the way they are. But if you go back to original sources, the literature of any particular era, you find that these causes were never apparent at the time they were supposed to be operating. During periods of root expansion things have always looked as confused and topsy-turvy and purposeless as they do now. The whole Renaissance is supposed to have resulted from the topsy-turvy feeling caused by Columbus' discovery of a new world. It just shook people up. The topsy-turviness of that time is recorded everywhere. There was nothing in the flat-earth views of the Old and New Testaments that predicted it. Yet people couldn't deny it. The only way they could assimilate it was to abandon the entire medieval outlook and enter into a new expansion of reason."
dmb continues:

That's what I was talking about the other day when I put personal struggles in terms of outgrown static patterns. In this case he puts it in terms of  the "inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal with new experiences". This is exactly the sort of situation where the historical examples are part of the problem rather than the source of a solution. They are the old forms of thought, mostly. Notice also that Pirsig says, "all that talk about technology and art is part of a pattern that seems to have emerged from my own life" and he says "I think the same thing occurs with whole civilizations when expansion's needed at the roots". I mean, it's not really a matter of whether or not the question is considered a traditional philosophical question. It could present itself as a personal issue, as a cultural problem or as both and then be discovered later in the literature. But in this case, the problem was with the limits of that literature and so the solution demanded that he go beyond tradition.

"Well, it isn't just art and technology", he says, "It's a kind of a noncoalescence between reason and feeling. What's wrong with technology is that it's not connected in any real way with matters of the spirit and of the heart" and because of this a whole lot of "people are asking if we must always suffer spiritually and esthetically in order to satisfy material needs". And since he's talking about a genetic defect within rationality itself, this disconnection between reason and feeling has effected philosophy as well as science and technology. The same kind of passionate caring and personal engagement that Pirsig's prescribes for the motorcycle mechanic and the artist is also what the doctor orders for the philosopher. But in the world of philosophy history or philosophy criticism making it all so personal will likely get you slapped with charges of bias, unfairness and even fanaticism. This is where it can be very handy to wear the pragmatist's label. In this school of thought, at least, philosophers are supposed to help with actual, practical problems, is supposed to be engaged with the culture. The continental philosophers were relatively unknown and philosophy in the english speaking world, in the years leading up to 1974, was dominated by those paradigms of value-free rationality, positivism, linguistic analysis, symbolic logic, etc.. So it is no wonder that Pirsig struck a chord in complaining about the lack of heart and spirit. I mean, that's what the philosophologist lacks too. I mean, a thinker who lacks spirit, heart, engaged caring or whatever you wish to call this quality, is the kind of thinker who deserves the admittedly "derogatory epithet".

"Philosophology is to philosophy as musicology is to music, or as art history and art appreciation are to art, or as literary criticism is to creative writing.  It's a derivative, secondary field, a sometimes parasitic growth that likes to think it controls its host by analyzing and intellectualizing its host's behavior." (first paragraph, Ch. 26)
Matt said:
We have two activities, sure, but one of these is a parasite. That doesn't sound very nice.  I mean, I'm sure there have been some very cocksure art historians and literary critics, but if meanness and assuredness is what we're talking about, have you ever met a genius who was so into his own vision that everyone else was wrong?  Isn't that the very notion of a "visionary," which is essentially what Pirsig thinks of as philosophy.  So, how is the visionary not doing their own controling and intellectualizing when they slot everyone else in their own place, like say an amoeba as a biological pattern or academic philosophers as philosophologists?

dmb says:
Well, you seemed to concede the distinction and admit that one is a parasite but then go on to argue that "meanness and assuredness is what we're talking about" and since the host is as big a dick as the the parasite, then there really is no difference. Yea, visionaries are just dicks. That's a grown up argument. C'mon Matt, you're being ridiculous. This point is childish and weak beyond all reason. 


Matt continued:
Now, art history looks very different from art, so "analyzing and intellectualizing" visual art does look different than what visual art itself is.  Part of what my last rhetorical question tries to punch up is how it might be difficult to tell the difference between Pirsig's philosopher and Pirsig's philosophologist, given the behavioral criteria of "analyzing and intellectualizing."  The reason for that (and apropos to your last comment, "Is the musician/musicologist analogy helpful?") is because Pirsig is using an asymetrical analogy. The analogy is _needed_ for Pirsig to draw his rhetorical contrast, ...

dmb says:
Yes, the analogy does SEEM asymmetrical but that's the point. It's immediately obvious to everyone that painters and art historians aren't the same thing at all but the difference between philosophers and historians of philosophy is not so obvious. (And please notice that the ability to spot the difference between artists and art historians doesn't depend on having a solid definition of "art". The same holds true for "philosophy".) To make the analogy work, then, you have to imagine a symmetry that isn't usually supposed for reasons that you're getting at. Both of them are engaged in intellectual activity, both are writing, talking and otherwise look like they're doing the same thing. But that similarity is superficial. From the outside, a Zen master and a couch potato appear to be doing the same thing when in fact they are doing approximately opposite things. 
I thing the "visionary" thing is about right, but it doesn't have to be an epic, culture saving, religion founding vision. It just has to be fresh. Remember that little story in ZAMM about the dull girl who wanted to write an essay about Montana but couldn't think of anything to say? Narrow it down to Bozeman, Pirsig advised her. The day before it was due she still couldn't think of anything to say. Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman, Pirsig advised her. Still she could think of nothing. Focus on the Opera house, he told her. She sat at a cafe across the street and pondered the Opera House, still unable to think of anything. Then she decided to focus on a single brick on the face of the Opera House, on Main Street, in Bozeman, Montana. Words poured out of her. Later, Pirsig realized what unblocked this writer was the fact that she had no way of relying on the work of past masters or textbooks. She was forced to do some original thinking, some original seeing. Maybe it was trivial, but at least it was original and that was the point of doing the essay anyway. Later he used this technique in the classroom, asking his students to write impromptu essays on things like a coin or the back of their own thumb, stuff Shakespheare never covered. I think this fresh vision thing is what Emerson was talking about when he said "Man should not be subdued by his instruments" and what Pirsig is getting at in saying we can't be limited by those instruments either. 
Matt thinks "Pirsig draws a picture  that no one can help but laugh at":
"You can imagine the ridiculousness of an art historian taking his students to museums, having them write a thesis on some historical or technical aspect of what they see there, and after a few years of this giving them degrees that say they are accomplished artists. … Yet, ridiculous as it sounds, this is exactly what happens in the philosophology that calls itself philosophy." [Ch. 26]

Matt responded (with laughter he couldn't help):

It would be ridiculous for an art historian to do that. But us delivering ridicule upon the head of the lame-brained academic seems to hinge on his confusing a discursive subject for a non-discursive one. The reason the art historian seems so silly is that writing a thesis on art is clearly different than painting. So what about literature? Though both creative writing and literary criticism are discursive, the line between the two does seem to be relatively easy to draw. 

dmb says:

Again, it's not that Pirsig has confused discursive and non-discursive disciplines. He's saying that nobody becomes an artist by writing about their trips to the museum. If everybody agrees that it would be ridiculous to call such a student an artist, then why is it not the case that everybody also thinks its ridiculous to call someone a philosopher when he has, in effect, done the very same thing. If philosophy books are the museum pieces on display and the job of the students is to look at them and write about them, then what's the difference? Pirsig is saying that professional philosophers are in that same position but haven't yet realized that being an expert on what's in the museum is different from producing something that will end up in the museum. 


Matt said:
Pirsig's rhetorical strategy seems to be to ask us to ignore whatever the philosophical community has to say about him because they are just bitter about being unable to do real philosophy. Under this guise, however, it would appear we could say any damn thing and call it philosophy because who would tell us otherwise? After all, in a bout of rhetorical overkill, Pirsig says, “philosophers … are a null-class.”  Well, if the list of contemporary philosophers is so small, it would have been nice if Pirsig could have provided us with a list so we could know who we can trust, who, in fact, we can listen to when they review his book and philosophy. ----- The last bit is a little mean-spirited, but I doubt any less so than calling professional philosophers parasites and fakers. ... And mind you, I'll forgive Pirsig because it is the design of our flaws that gives us definition and engineers the paths of betterness.  But I won't abide it in those who should know better.  It is, to my mind, part of the better path out of Pirsig that we leave that piece behind.

dmb says:
Hmmm. I would tend to take "null class" to mean that each philosopher is in a class of his or her own. You know, that originality of vision, that freshness of seeing, seems to demand solitude and it even has a way of isolating the people who do it. I suppose there's some truth to the old cliche of the lone genius, even if she is working our collective, cultural problems. As far as spotting the real philosophers, it must be something like spotting the next great rock band. You just go to a lot of shows and hope that you recognize it when you see it. In either case, nobody can say in advance what the next big thing is gonna look like. But when it pops up, people see it and they grab hold and it gets around soon enough. In the quotes above, for example, he says all this talk is concerned with what's "almost a national crisis". Here you practically have a prediction about the country's eager reception of the book's message. 35 years later and you can still find it in just about any bookstore. In a country that doesn't read much, that's really saying something. Not that popular success is what makes one a philosopher. But you gotta give the guy some points for relevance.  

Top Ten List of Things I Hate:
1. Hate
2. Top ten lists
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Thanks, 

dmb





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