[MD] suspended in language

[Matt Kundert]

Steve, Ron,

Matt said:
I'm not sure Pirsig's so-called innovation within 
pragmatism was either needed (I don't think it broke 
ground) or desirable (I think it might have been 
retrogressive).

Steve said:
But it wasn't really an innovation *within* pragmatism. 
What is interesting to me is that Pirsig seems to be 
unaware of the critiques against SOM coming from the 
pragmatist and existentialist movements, yet comes to 
pretty much the same place from an entirely different 
direction. What is so impressive about Pirsig is that he 
made these same critiques so artfully within a 
semi-autobiographical narrative that made such ideas 
accessible to a fairly wide audience.

Matt:
Well, I'm thinking of the passages on James in Lila, and I 
take him to be self-consciously interceding in that 
tradition to take on, at least somewhat, that mantle.  I 
would agree about his seeming unawareness, though I 
think some of it is affected, and he knows more than he 
acknowledges in his writing (part of which I think is tied 
to a "rugged individualist" leit motif in his writings), and 
I'm not sure how hard I'd press on "entirely different" 
when considering his direction (if most philosophical 
writings are motivated by metaphysical and 
epistemological questions, and Pirsig's are too, what do 
we mean by "different"?), but I know what you mean.

The only thing I was concerned with is his point of 
integration with the pragmatist tradition exemplified by 
his commentary on James.  He basically says, "James is 
great, and I'm saying everything he does, except for this 
one thing that James slipped up on..."  That's the part 
where Pirsig perceives his notion of levels as coming to 
the rescue.  It is only those two things, in this context, 
that I take issue with: 1) his perception of "James's 
mistake" and 2) his perception of how his notion of 
levels help.

If one were looking for foundationalist noises, one would 
look in his commentary on James.

Other than that, yeah, I think Pirsig's importance lies 
entirely upon his artful autobiography.  You'll certainly 
get no argument from me there.  My perception of the 
philosophy that's been done over the last 2500 years is 
that you will find a lot of friends saying nearly the same 
thing as you if you are a friendly philosopher (Pirsig was 
not a friendly philosopher).  I tend to think people here 
in this forum, to take a wonderful locution from our 
former president, greatly _mis_underestimate the 
importance of the form of his philosophy, as opposed to 
its propositional content, by not re-conceiving the history 
of philosophy more fully--something Pirsig himself does 
not re-conceive explicitly.  If one takes the rhetorical as 
primary over the dialectical, one's history of thought will 
look different--and Pirsig doesn't map that, and still draws 
most of his problems from the old kettle.  ZMM was 
exemplary as his first step, and he could've stopped there 
for all history could've cared.  It was a big, amazing step.  
But he wanted to take another step, and I think that step 
was sideways.  He gave us new wine in ZMM, but put it in 
old wineskins in Lila.

Ron said:
Matt doesent seem to think Pirsig added much to 
Pragmatism but I tend to think it's argueable that RMP 
lended strength through morals to Pragmatic meaning. 
Basically against the amoral objective view of it. By 
equating Pramatic truth value with "the good" and by 
breaking that value into   two kinds  A dynamic truth 
value and a static truth value. I feel by dividing up these 
two variations of "the good" in four types of catagories 
explains and gives strength for a need to uphold social 
moral standards in the face of scientific objectivity. 
Something Pragmatism in my opinion, lacked.

Matt:
Well, certainly this area's all very much arguable.  What 
I can't wrap my head around is what, say, "strength 
through morals" Pirsig lent pragmatism.  Afterall, it was 
Dewey who said that reality was an evaluative term.  If 
that's not an analogue to Quality, I'm not sure what is.  
And alongside Dewey's view that all philosophy was 
really philosophy of education, I don't really perceive the 
lack in the classical pragmatists "for a need to uphold 
social moral standards in the face of scientific objectivity."  
I'm uncomfortable with saying "Pirsig didn't add much to 
pragmatism," but it certainly seems like I say that.  I 
think the difference might be that I think Pirsig's 
accomplishments are in a different direction than other 
people do.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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