[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[david buchanan]

Mary:
On what basis do you make you claims? Sorry, but I just don't see any merit to your objections or accusations.
Again, I don't see how it can make any sense to reject James against Pirsig, especially since it was Pirsig who equated them. What this equation adds to the MOQ is about a hundred years of commentary, criticism, debate and development of these central ideas. Pirsig puts the MOQ in the mainstream of American pragmatism because it fits there but also because he wants it to catch on. I mean, this equation has to be philosophically accurate but it's a political and practical choice too. 
By the way, James did get into something like the levels toward the end of his career in "A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE". But the diagnosis Pirsig makes about the conflict between social and intellectual values is based largely on historical events that unfolded after James's lifetime. The Victorian era was very confused about such things and I don't know that James was able to transcend his own context in that regard. But then again Pirsig is only adding a caveat to a very old distinction between mythos and logos AND that's not the feature of James's work that Pirsig identifies with anyway. Like I said, Pirsig equates James's "immediate flux" with DQ or the primary empirical reality and James even uses the same terms; Static and Dynamic. 


 
> [Mary Replies] 
> There is a difference between what you describe here as James' version of DQ
> and Pirsig's.  Pirsig's philosophy is built on the idea of the 4 levels each
> valuing different things and a DQ with an emphasis on the "Q" from which
> these values spring.  Pirsig's DQ is not random and amorphous.  It has
> direction and value at its core.  James' does not.
> 
> That being the case, What does the Intellectual Level value?  If you contend
> it to be thinking itself, then what does thinking itself value that differs
> from the values of the other levels, and what value does James bring to the
> conversation?

 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2