[MD] Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Common Sense

[Matt Kundert]

DMB said:
Let me put it this way. I didn't see Pirsig in your story. Didn't 
really see Plato or Socrates in it either, actually.

Matt:
Two things: one you'll recall I said that it wasn't (exactly) about 
the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Pirsig, or Rorty.  I was using 
their particulars as symbols for larger issues.  Which is to say, 
I used some things I'd picked up on each of them in their context 
(scholarly facts) to elaborate a story about, roughly, professional 
philosophy.  It's a trick Pirsig does in his books, in fact.

And two, to say that if you don't talk about Plato's Form of the 
Good, you aren't talking about Plato is staggeringly near-sighted, 
and I find it difficult to find a reply that does justice to the hundreds 
of scholars and interpreters that have shed light on Plato and 
Socrates who, say, simply write about Plato's Phaedrus.  When you 
dig into the scholarly literature on Plato, for instance, one thing you 
learn is that Plato's Republic didn't become what people think of 
when they hear the name Plato until about the 19th Century (a fact 
I remember once reading, but that I, ironically given your challenge 
to my schoarly understanding of Plato, could not track down the 
source of in the 15 or so minutes I spent quickly scavenging the 40 or so 
books I have on Greek philosophy--c'est la vie).  Not to continually 
plug a point I was making about myself--why on earth would you 
demand that every piece about Plato be about one section of one 
of his 26 or so dialogues?  Did he write those other ones for no 
apparent reason?

This might be the silliest argument we've ever had.  If you'd just said, 
"I liked the bit about the parallel between ZMM and the Republic.  
Though, since my predelictions lie in developing the side of Pirsig aimed 
at mysticism and systematic metaphysics, I'd wished you'd talked a bit 
more about mysticism than just the one tidbit about Orphism."  But 
no--you gotta' make it a whole production about my continued 
complete misapprehension of Pirsig.  Can't you just take sunshine shone 
for what it is and let the rest lie as it's supposed to in a throw-away 
piece like that?  I swear, it's like you'll make hay out of anything.

DMB said:
Also, if my Professor was right, drawing a line between Socrates and 
Plato involves many interpretive complexities. Basically, one has to be 
a Plato scholar, a Classicist of some kind in order to draw such lines. 
It's way too tricky for me, anyway. Are you relying on anyone in particular 
there? Just curious.

Matt:
Yeah, I'm sure you're just curious.  Be a man when you're calling me 
out, would you?

First, it was an interpretive piece, not a scholarly splitting of Socrates 

and Plato, so I don't think my fairly symbolic distinction between the

two requires much scholastic backing up, as I wasn't making many

controversial claims (though, I suppose, one would need to have a read
a bit of the scholarly stuff to perceive a controversial claim--time I
usually take to point out, but I've been told it boggs down my writing).

Second, where are Pirsig's footnotes and bibliography?

Third, as Pirsig was writing for a diffuse audience and as I routinely
get made fun of for having about as many footnotes as I do three-line 
sentences, I was trying my hand at suppressing scholarly apparatus in 
the hopes of readability.

Serves me right.

Since you questioned no particular thing I wrote in the piece, either 

about the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Pirsig or Rorty, I'll just throw out 

a few books I can remember particular bits having been gleaned from.

The bits about the scene in which the Sophists and Socrates came 
out of is a melange of material I read from Werner Jaeger's Paideia 
(vol. 1), which in particular has a chapter on Arete and Nobility; W.K.C. 
Guthrie's still authoritative The Sophists, which gives as unbiased 
description of them and their context as you'll find; Alexander Nehamas' 
The Art of Living (which was based on the Sather Lectures he gave--the 
giving of which is something like the highest honor for a classicist), 
particularly the first three chapters which go into some argumentative 
detail about Platonic irony between Plato and his audience and Socratic 
irony between not only Socrates the character and his interlocutors, but 
also Socrates the character and Plato the author (Nehamas, in this 
book--as I remark in another post you wouldn't like for not talking about 
Plato while talking about Plato, What Happened to Political Philosophy?--is 
the dude who suggests "success" for arete); Pierre Hadot's What Is 
Ancient Philosophy?, a remarkablely readable (without skimping on 
scholarship) intro to that period, in both context and spirit;  T.H. Irwin's 
Classical Thought, along with his entry in The Cambridge Companion to 
Plato--though Irwin is excessively boring and stiff as an interpreter, he 
does get most of his facts straight and provides many; I'll stop there.

If one had to shake out an interpretive principle for sorting out Socrates 
from Plato as I did, I think it would have to be between Socrates the 
Dude Who Only Spoke and Professed Ignorance and Plato the Dude Who 
Wrote Quite a Bit About What He Knew, or Hoped to Know (Particularly 
For a Dude Who Loved a Dude Who Professed Ignorance).  I take that to
be a completely uncontroversial way of splitting them apart.

Matt

p.s.  I have no desire to scare amateur philosophers--of which I not only 
consider myself one, but plan on remaining for the interim--from saying 
things about Socrates, Plato, or whomever just because interpretation 
can get dicey.  Not only does Pirsig come to the amateur's defense, but so 
does Rorty.


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