[MD] Another parallel

[Matt Kundert]

Matt said:
I don't think I'm confident about "spotting contradictions," 
though I
do have lingering feelings from my days of 
exclusive involvement with
Pirsig that there were "tensions," 
tensions being a term of art, I
suppose, that might mean 
two positions that seemingly pull in opposite
ways.

DMB said:
Okay, I'll bite. What is the difference between "two 
positions that
seemingly pull in opposite ways" and "a 
contradiction"? Besides the use
of the term "seemingly" as a 
softener, don't they mean the same thing?

Matt:
I suppose if I had to make something up, I'd say that a 
contradiction requires a stipulated vocabulary of 
articulation, so that a statement "P" could be brought next 
to its negation "not P" in a very explicit way.

I greatly doubt any philosopher has committed to print a 
contradiction (at least, one not meant to be a 
contradiction).  Contradictions can be generated, though, 
by the attempt to dialogue, by extrapolating explicit 
statements into other contexts, by translating "Q" into the 
language of "P," and by a very simple translating scheme 
noticing that "Q" means "not P" (very rarely do we get, e.g., 
the spectacle of Republicans arguing that "gov'ts can't run 
crap" and "the gov't will run everyone out of business").

This is just to say that I take your word "contradiction" to 
mean something very obvious, something that can be 
_seen_ on the surface.  This, I take it, is also something 
like what you mean by your word, "contradiction," as in your 
choice in metaphor, in "spotting" them.

What I was talking about is something different than that, 
which is why I don't think the intelligence of the writer, or 
our memory of the surface of the text, has anything to do 
with it.  What I might denote by the word "tension," in 
opposition to "contradiction," is a feeling one gets from the 
text, something below the surface, in its 
potentially-extrapolated, implicit connections.  Tensions are, 
then, not something seen, but made.  You have to make 
your dim, implicit apprehensions of the text explicit, work 
them out on the page.  You have to take the text, and work 
with it, make the text speak to other parts of itself (or other 
parts it doesn't explicitly speak to).

It would be, I suppose, on analogy with the Dynamic/static 
distinction.  A tension is a dim apprehension, and a 
contradiction is the static debris created only after the 
work in explicating has been done (created something to be 
seen).  So, on the one hand, I can grant you that the goal 
is to turn "tensions" into "contradictions," to show explicitly 
how P butts up against Q.  And I have worked out, in one 
case, a stipulated vocabulary of articulation that creates an 
explicit, let's say, variance in desired expectation (I don't 
think Pirsig's philosophy/philosophology distinction does his 
better angels justice).  Whether successful or not, it does 
create something.  

But on the other hand, what I did in "Philosophologology" 
was create a _stipulated_ vocabulary of articulation, one 
you might think is wrong _because_ it creates tensions 
(where, you would say, there are none), but it isn't a 
vocabulary I have any particular attachment to in reading 
Pirsig--it is one context out of many I've used, though the 
only one worked out so explicitly.  And so I sit at the level 
of "tension," rather than "contradiction," because I think 
Pirsig's thought is too complex for one silly paper to pin 
down.  And on this hand, then, is also my articulated sense 
that none of the tensions I feel about Pirsig have been 
resolved by others' articulations of Pirsig--my own doubts 
have not been allayed.

It is perfectly legitimate to not give a damn about my 
doubts, but I don't think I'm doing anything dogmatic or out 
of the norm from what any other inquirer involved in a 
long-term inquiry does.  Nor do I personally think I'm 
distorting Pirsig, nor do I think it has really been shown that 
I am.  Granted, that might be quite a high mountain to 
traverse (not just convincing others, but  _that_ person, 
too, that they were grossly mistaken), and I might not be 
the best judge of what's been shown or not shown in regard 
to my own case, but we always have to keep our own 
counsel.  "Distorting" is a big, nasty word to be throwing 
around at readers, especially when the range of articulation 
is just too small in an e-mail.

Shit just don't get nailed down that easily.  People spend 
their whole lives workin' in opposition to others, but they do 
so in quasi-respect.  You have a snide lilt to your 
written-voice, one that does true injustice to Pirsig's spirit, 
and philosophy.  I would think the spirit of philosophy, the 
spirit of inquiry, would rather have the communal spirit of 
fellowship, rather than the Wilberian Infobahn predators.

DMB said:
With respect to your confidence in spotting tensions, by the 
way, I used the term "seems" as a softener too.

Matt:
Sure, but I don't think I "seemed" that way at all.  I thought
you were, if you will, distorting me.

Matt

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