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

[X Acto]

----- Original Message ----
From: Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 7:45:11 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Creativity and Philosophology, 2 (from 2005)


Oh, I'm sorry Ron.  Maybe you were taking me a little too literally.

I didn't realize I was responding directly to something you had said, and so wasn't cognizant of actively disregarding statements you had said.

In looking at the statements I accidentally disregarded, at the time I had read them they probably didn't make a big impression on me because I have to confess I didn't really follow you.

For instance, I don't really know what you mean by "objective analytic approach."  Perhaps you mean something like a method, like setting up a meatgrinder and putting everything through it no matter what it is, as opposed to just kind of improvising every situation?  Something like that?

It reminds me of Rorty's poking fun at American deconstructionism.  A large movement of mainly literary theorists in the United States through 70s and 80s began reading Jacques Derrida as wielding a method on the texts he read, and then peeled off this method they saw and began using it themselves.  Rorty, on the other hand, always understood "deconstruction" as "whatever it is that Derrida is doing," because he couldn't really see any consistent method at work or anything, just a brilliant mind writing some pretty cool shit.  Rorty said, though, that wielding a method is a pretty easy way to publish (though it does get tedious).

On the other hand, while what you mean by "objective analytic approach" resonates well with what Pirsig meant by "classic" in ZMM, I confess that I don't really recognize it in what he meant by "philosophology," though we're all free to use it as we wish I suppose.

I love the notion of an "active attitude of inquiry," though I'm not sure exactly what it means, but I have to again confess that I have no idea what you mean in the second large requoted block you wrote.  It sounds like you're trying to peel history off of inquiry, which doesn't sound right to me, but there might be a finely molded tissue of thought there that I don't understand.

And I surely can't respond to the assertion that I'm restating SOM.

Matt

Hello Matt,
First, I meant that Pirsigs use of the term philosophilology, to me,
is a restatement of the SOM arguement within the bounds of philosophy.

In other words, how western culture defines intellect as a body of historical
objective analyticly tested logical "facts" or "truths" that produce certain
assumptions and blind spots in perception and therefore in inquirey.

Second, yes, I'm attempting  to peel this type of assumptive cultural history from
from a more dynamic personal level of investigation into experiences.

-Ron