[MD] Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Common Sense

[Matt Kundert]

DMB,

DMB said:
Usually I hate the kind of criticism that knocks a piece for the 
things it didn't say or should have said but it really does seem 
wrong to leave this out of an essay about Pirsig and Plato.
Matt:
Well, aside from the self-consciousness I confided to Marsha, there's also the 
issue of the essay not exactly being _about_ Pirsig at all.  There was some 
scholarly exposition of the spirit of Pirsig (like the bit about the Republic) and 
there was some scholarly exposition of what happened in Greece with the Sophists, 
Socrates, and Plato (like the bit about the Sophists as the first professional 
intellectuals), but both of these bits were used to other ends--I wasn't writing 
about Pirsig's philosophy (exactly), I wasn't writing about Plato's philosophy (exactly), 
I was writing about philosophy (if somewhat inexactly, as all such writings about 
that subject must be).  Specifically, _Western_ philosophy, which is why it would 
have been even more weird and awkward to write about Eastern intellectual traditions 
in the middle of it, for their traditions would have required a story of their own (of 
their birth, etc.).  

If I had been writing specifically about Pirsig, excavating _his_ thought and philosophy 
rather than a parable (a story about Philosophy that has a moral for us), it would 
have been more weird and neglectant to _not_ talk about his Eastern connections, as 
you and Marsha say.  And, like I said to Marsha, I am self-conscious of my working of 
only certain avenues in Pirsig, and if I should ever have opportunity to write at length 
about Pirsig, an opportunity to write a comprehensive exposition and analysis of Pirsig, 
then I am in very much agreement that to not uncover the hidden resources behind his 
use of the Dao and Buddhism and Northrop would be negligently one-sided.  Until then, 
though, I'm content to uncover pearls of only one sort, with the attendant understanding 
that I'm not _trying_ to be comprehensive.  At best, I'm leaving notes on the way to a 
more comprehensive understanding of Pirsig (by tracking down one side of him).  And, 
in another respect, I'm not always (particularly in this case) repeating Pirsig's own story 
(i.e., trying to understand his story better), but trying to cast sidelight on it by telling 
a different one.

Bo said to Matt:
More agreement, the Sophists were part and
parcel of the budding intellectual level - of 
SOM - namely its
subjectivists. "Man the measure" was their credo that opposed Socrates'

and Plato's objectivism, that truth was independent of man. ...What you
write here and 
in your blog may be correct, but it clutters MOQ's level
picture which is that before these 
last 500 years BC - before the
intellectual LEVEL - the social LEVEL ruled.

DMB said:
It's pretty clear that your assertion, that the Sophist's were the
subjective half of SOM, 
is explicitly contradicted here [in the text quote from Pirsig]. The contest
between Plato 
and the Sophists is not a contest between subjective and
objective truth. It's not a 
contest between social patterns and
intellectual patterns either, even though Pirsig 
invokes Homer's heroes
in making a case for arete as Dharma too. It's a contest between

dynamic and static quality.

Matt:
Realize, I'm quite sympathetic to checking Bo's, shall we say, heavy-handed appropriations 
of other people's material (Pirsig's, mine, whoever).  However, I'd like to distinguish 
between three different levels of inquiry we might make into Pirsig in relationship to this point--1) what really happened in Greece, 2) the correct usage of Pirsig's terminology, 
and 3) the use Pirsig puts his terminology.  For instance, with (1) we might inquire into 
the actual development of the concept of arete from Homer to Plato, and this would 
provide sidelight onto Pirsig's use of that data in making his points about arete, which 
would be (2)--because it doesn't matter whether Pirsig is scholastically right or wrong 
about arete for his _philosophy_, though it might tell us something about his philosophy 
to know if he is.

In this case, I was doing a bit more of (1) than either (2) or (3), and Bo wants--as usual--
to do (2).  In your check on (2), I think you might be more doing (3).  For instance, while 
it is always a contest between Dynamic and static patterns (that's the root of culture 
change, of the movement of history, according to Pirsig's terminology), we do need to 
be able to tell a story about the creation of the levels.  I think Bo might have been doing 
the latter, while you riposted with the former.  On the other hand, I might be 
misunderstanding your point, and that you are expressing a disagreement on (2)--such 
that it _isn't_ always apropos to point to a conflict as Dynamic v. static, that sometimes 
the conflicts are static v. static, and sometimes specifically DQ in toto v. static patterns 
in toto.

Either way, let me say this in relation to Pirsig's assertion that the intellectual level was 
being created in Greece, and--on this supposition--there were only three operative 
levels previously.  I think Bo's continued assertion that SOM is the intellectual level is 
wrong on a historical and conceptual level.  He concedes that it is wrong on the textual 
level, so there's very little point in emphasizing that, but on the side of history, I don't 
think anything like the modern subjective/objective distinction existed in Greek thought 
(though its original impetus is clearly traceable to there) and to characterize as Bo does 
is too excessively misleading, to the point of being counterproductive.  On the conceptual 
side, he's just hypostatizing the Cartesian malformation of Platonism.  Does it make sense 
to say that we _discovered_ the _fact_ that we have minds, a subjective side, somewhere 
around 500 BCE or 1700 CE (depending on whether you believe Bo or me)?  And if we 
follow Pirsig in saying these things were _created_, why would we have to keep shitty, 
unworkable junk we made up?  Why can't we invent something better to replace it?  
That's why I've never understood Bo's interpretation.  It's a Platonic appropriation of Pirsig, 
a Platonist sliding the latest philosophies into the conceptual cubbyholes he brought with 
him, when the point of most self-described revolutionary philosophies is to create new 
cubbyholes--to understand them in the old, while entirely within one's rights (as an implicit 
rejection of the new slots), is besides the point to those who want to work with the new 
ones.

At any rate, I think the key to understanding what happened in Greece, and the relationship 
of Pirsig's social/intellectual distinction to historical evolution, is in the advent of literacy.  
I didn't talk much directly about the shift from an oral culture to a literate one, but in 
following out the work of Eric Havelock and Walter Ong, I think it casts tremendously 
illuminating sidelight.  Reflection on past customs, to be able to think about them critically, 
just wasn't possible until we could right them down.  Customs passed on orally were, 
ironically considering the fluidity of oral speech compared to written, more static in terms 
of cultural change because the efforts of inferential reasoning--critical thinking--are next 
to impossible when it is only your personal memory that locks anything down.  If reasoning 
is going in a line from A to B to C, and concluding D, how can anybody--let alone you--
check your line of reasoning (a pointedly spatial, ocular metaphor notice) if no one can 
remember what A and B were?  And how do you remember your conclusion, why you 
changed your mind from X to Y?  If beliefs are habits of mind, and you remember vaguely 
the new thing you're supposed to believe (which is a habit of action, and so meaning also 
do), but not why, might you not just keep going on believing X?  And likewise if you 
completely forgot Y entirely.  And how do you pass on Y, a better belief than X, to your 
children if you forgot it?

The thought experiment is to help ease into the counter-intuitive thought that an oral 
culture is more static than a literate one, despite the fact that the written thought is 
more static than the oral one.  It is precisely _because_ of the increased ability to hold 
the thought still on paper that makes it easier for us overcome it, and thus become more 
Dynamic as a culture.

The interpretation of the social/intellectual distinction is along the lines of the 
authority/reason distinction, except now--rather than the Platonic, metaphysical 
interpretation given by Enlightenment philosophers--we can give a rather more detailed 
explanation of what this means.  Authority is in vogue in an oral culture because 
inferential reasoning, which demands the off-shoring of memory to paper, is insanely 
difficult and the reason one holds to X is because person P says it works for them.  
Person Q might say it doesn't, but Q is a known crazy person with no authority (meaning 
we shouldn't trust them).  (I say "crazy" with full sidelight being cast on Pirsig's philosophy 
of insanity.)  But after literacy becomes widespread, we can ask for reasons to believe X 
from both P and Q, and then think about those reasons at our leisure, though sometimes 
authority will do in a pinch.

The application of this interpretation to our current culture might go something like this--
if you want to pull together the seemingly disparate threads of why those with more 
education are statistically more likely to be liberal, why Reagan began eviscerating the 
American education system, why he began the process of tearing down the welfare state 
and increasing the gap between rich and poor, why Bush Jr. thought it was a good thing 
for a person to have two jobs, why Chris Matthews likes to say that Republicans are 
looking for a leader and Democrats for a meeting, and why Limbaugh listeners call 
themselves "dittoheads," look no further than an understanding of oral culture.

More education means more reading, more reading means increased exposure to different 
thoughts and increased ability to mull over thoughts.  More poverty means less time to 
read and think as anxiety over food and material concerns takes over, just as Maslow said, 
when you take that second job.  Looking for a leader is all you can do when you need 
a surrogate to do the thinking for you because you have to take the thinker's word for 
what they say.  And with the inability to off-shore memory to external sources from your 
own head, you need the repetition of talking points in your ear to help you remember what 
you think.

I think there is a sense in which the terms "social" and "intellectual" service well what 
happened in Greece, and a sense in which Pirsig was right that there's nothing inherently 
wrong with the social--society wouldn't exist without it--but that we need to understand 
the conflict.

Matt

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