[MD] Another parallel

[david buchanan]

Matt said to dmb:
When I see you saying things quite contentedly that a year before you were hammering me for saying, I find that frustrating.

dmb replies:
Why would something like that frustrate you? I would be flattered by that. Doesn't it mean that I'm learning something, maybe even learning it from you? 

Matt continued:
Saying I have an "analytic bent," for instance, doesn't seem very fair to actual analytic philosophers, whom I suspect I have very little in common with.  The reasons for you saying that I have an "analytic bent" would be reason enough to say I have a "Greek bent"--in both cases, I have a little familiarity with them: that's about it.  But you don't say the former because you only see the latter, I suspect not because I write about it more, but because you have an old image of me and "analytic" is more obviously foreign to Pirsig and more of a rhetorical noose around my neck.

dmb says:

It's just a rhetorical noose, eh? I'm not trying to pull any tricks here. It just seems to me that you avoid the content and substance of things and prefer to examine the forms or packages that the content comes wrapped in. The analytic bent refers to your style, characterizes the mode of conversation you're employing presently. I was trying to convey the idea that you like to talk around things while I prefer to try to get to the substantive heart of the matter, and here you're responded with an analysis in terms of rhetoric tactics. Before that, your response was to introduce distinctions, the question of contexts and similar lines of thought that all strike me as formally rigorous but conceptually empty. That's what I mean by an analytic bent. And it also seems fair to say that some of your intellectual heroes come out of that tradition and you tend to imitate their style and manners. It's like that HBO show called "Deadwood". There are two kinds of characters who have completely different ways of expressing themselves. As I like to put it - to demonstrate the difference even as I'm explaining - the gentlemen use unnecessarily elaborate Victorian circumlocutions and the cowboys use plain fucking talk. Somehow, they manage to get along anyway.  

Matt said:
I have been traveling a path, Dave, a path that has not crossed extensively with the traditions of mysticism, East or West.  It is a path that in the last few years has been predominately preoccupied with Greece and literature, particularly an American tradition of writing that extends from Emerson and Thoreau on out, a tradition I consider Pirsig an important contributor to.  A tradition--believe it or not and squeal if you wish--that in the end, I consider more important to Pirsig's lasting vision (and appeal), mysticism becoming, much as it is in Emerson and Thoreau, a  particulate in service of a larger form.

dmb replies:
I would think that any decent pragmatist would include Emerson and Thoreau as part of the tradition. In fact, they were the first assigned readings in Hildebrand's pragmatism class. But the fact that you want to de-emphasize their mysticism as well only has the effect of enlarging the scope of my objections. It only compounds the problem, re-asserts the very thing I'm saying is a huge mistake. I mean, it's not so much that your path has not crossed the traditions of mysticism in the West because Emerson and James would probably be among thee prime examples of American mysticism. As I see it, you're on the right path but you're walking right past the stuff I'm pointing to within that tradition. It's my contention that this tradition, especially its larger form, is best understood when that mystical element is taken seriously, as more that just a "particulate". If one reads The American Scholar without the mysticism, for example, it's little more than flag-waving nationalism. Without the mysticism, Emerson's essay on self-reliance is just Reaganism. I'm not accusing you of right-wing politics. We both love Feingold, etc.. But I honestly don't see how the mysticism can be eliminated or diminished without doing damage to the meaning of that tradition. The terms that seem so opaque and cause you headaches are very much a part of that path you're walking already. It's true that James's concept of "pure experience" has its counter part in Zen Buddhism and other Eastern traditions and they can help us to understand what James is saying, Emerson and Thoreau are just as helpful, especially for Americans like us. I certainly no expert in Eastern Philosophies and what I do know about comes almost exclusively from Western interpreters. Not to be harsh, Matt, but I really don't think your path serves as a reason to avoid our differences over radical empiricism. That issue can be fully discussed while remaining within the West. The books that sit on your shelf are more than good enough, in fact. 


Matt said:_That's_ a major difference--your primary reference point is a philosophical system called the Metaphysics of Quality.  My major reference point is a philosopher named Robert Pirsig, who wrote two books, in one of which he embedded a loosely fleshed philosophical system.  The writings swing around the center of the MoQ for you, while the MoQ swings around the center of the writings for me.

dmb says:
I honestly have no idea what that means. Again, I'm quite sure that the difference "swings" around radical empiricism. I think that the MOQ can't be understood coherently without it, that you're reading the MOQ without it, thus your reading produces apparent "tensions". I really wish you'd address this objection directly and explicitly. 


Matt said:Is that, perhaps, a less frustrating way of encapsulating our differences?  Does seeing it this way, perhaps, make my approach seem a little less illegitimate?

dmb says:
It might be a less frustrating way of looking at the difference but I can't say because I don't know what you mean. What's the difference between the MOQ and Pirsig's philosophical system, loosely fleshed or otherwise? It looks like the difference between Detroit and Motown, between Chicago and the Windy City. And what does that difference have to do with radical empiricism or mysticism? What I find so frustrating is your increasingly abstract and tangential ways of trying to characterize our disagreement, when it's actually very simple and obvious. This stuff about paths and contexts and pivot points doesn't get at my plainly stated objections. All that strikes me as a digression, a diversion or even an excuse to avoid the actual substance and meaning of radical empiricism. 


Matt said:Perhaps not, but that's probably the strongest thing you'll hear me say against Pirsig's mysticism--it's important, but not as important as it would appear you think.

dmb replies:
Yes, exactly. Thank you for acknowledging that so clearly and explicitly. I feel greatly relieved by that small gesture. That is exactly where we disagree. I think Pirsig's mysticism more important than you do and that has everything to do with radical empiricism. That's the heart of the dispute. It would be nice if we talked about that and just that.

Matt ended with a p.s.:
My suspicion about various items of Pirsig's philosophy, like the immediate/mediate distinction, stem usually less from Pirsig's writings, but more from what interpreters make them say.  When others have their hand up the back of the Pirsig puppet, he sometimes talks weird to my ears, though I typically don't have many problems running the puppet myself.


dmb replies:
I find this Pirsig-as-sock-puppet analogy extremely objectionable. I mean, the implication is that people can freely manipulate the text to make it do whatever they want, to make Pirsig say whatever they want him say. That's the last thing I'd want to do. I realize, of course, that every reader brings something to the text, that the text is rich enough to support a wide range of legitimate interpretations and that no reader's interpretation could exhaust the possibilities. But we're all limited by that same text too. It can only be stretched so far and when a reading goes beyond those limits, the reader is just making stuff up. And to the extent that a reading can only be coherent when portions of the text are sent into exile, that's just a bad interpretation. 
The MOQ is explained in straight-forward, jargon-free prose. The literary aspects of the book would demand a more sophisticated approach, but we are talking about radical empiricism and philosophical mysticism, not Lila's character or Rigel's type. We have differing interpretations about a specific piece of the philosophical system itself, no? Pirsig's explanations are concrete and explicit enough that we don't even have to guess if pragmatism and radical empiricism are the correct labels because he just flat out tells us that. And that's also the case with mysticism. You know this and apparently even agree that it is an important element. And yet here you've implied that this aspect only appears when certain puppeteers are at the helm and that they somehow MAKE it weird. You've got a forked tongue thing going here that kinda bugs me. Or, to mix metaphors, it seems like the verbal equivalent of a head fake to the left and then a lurch to the right. And it all seems overly complicated by this sort of thing, like we can never get to the content of the debate because we're constantly sidetracked by interpretive issues. Can't we just a agree on some simple standards and get on with it? 
Okay, let me take a deep breath here. 
I want to depersonalize and simplify this. 
Clear the air, I hope. 

How about if I pose a question? You know, in addition to the one about posing a question. Instead of talking about who operating the puppet, who is working from what angle, tradition, context, or path, let us simply ask what Pirsig thinks. Let's pretend that the author intended to say something and our job, as best we can, by any legitimate method, is to find out what he means. We are in a very lucky situation here because we practically have access to the author. The published books tell us what the MOQ is and isn't, despite what reviewers have said. We have Lila's Child, letters from Pirsig, and we could even bother him with more questions if we wanted. So anyway, if the relative importance of mysticism is the point of contention and we've already established that I think it's more important than you do then we're done and that's that. But that seems like a pretty meaningless resolution to me. Don't you want to know how important it is to Pirsig? What role does it play in the overall system? What were his intentions with regard to terms like "pure experience" and "philosophical mysticism"? What does he mean when he says Quality is "mystical" term? I realize this is kind of a dumb and old-fashioned interpretive theory but the questions are interesting enough and the situation lends itself to such an obvious method. It certainly has the advantage of simplicity but, like I said, we can try to discover what Pirsig means by method that seems right.
Like I said, you're perfectly free to employ what methods suit you, but since I'm not at all persuaded by the idea that it's a purely interpretive issue, that we can make Pirsig say whatever we want him to say and I'm this whole proposal is an attempt to avoid the complications that entails, I wouldn't go there if I were you. I certainly don't mean to say there is only one correct interpretation, the one that corresponds to the author's intentions. But I think it is safe to say that the author had intentions that are, more or less, knowable. 
It seems the race began long ago but we've only been standing at the gate talking about how the race should proceed. The guy with the starting gun fired it and went home months ago. At a certain point we gotta start running. Preferably in a strait line toward the finish. 



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