[MD] The One True MOQ

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Arlo,

Arlo said:
But when we use "THE metaphysics of Quality" in this way, 
does it trap the dialogue in the interpretative domain by 
implying "there can be only one"?

In other words, if "THE metaphysics of Quality" = Pirsig's ideas, 
then a "papal bull" would seem to impair discussion, and 
capturing the interpretative ground would seem to be the only 
way to attain legitimacy.

For me, again as one of those evil "interlictials", I frame this 
as Pirsig's ideas = "A metaphysics of Quality" (the foundation 
for which we are all here, to be sure), and Bo's ideas = "A 
metaphysics of Quality" that is a critical revision of Pirsig's 
ideas.

Matt:
If I catch you right, your re-opening the case I was making 
against a particular rhetorical pattern in Pirsig's writing--the 
avoidance of the appearance having authority--and isolating 
one specific instance of rhetorical choice: "a MoQ" or "the 
MoQ."  Is that right?  And you want to say that Pirsig should 
have rather stated, in light of his comment that "there 
already is a metaphysics of Quality," that he was talking 
about "a MoQ"?

That's interesting: if Pirsig had rather always stated "A 
metaphysics of Quality says that...," he would have 
rhetorically created a field of inquiry, rather like Chomsky 
created linguistics.  Because what would have been clear 
was that _the_ fundamental starting point was 
Quality--the idea that value precedes everything else--and 
that everything else becomes an explication of just what, 
exactly, that means for everything else (revising evolution, 
psychology, etc.).  Instead of rhetorically creating a system, 
he could have created a field.

I'm not sure how much it matters, though.  I can't wrap my 
head around imagining whether it would have been better 
because the problem is still acolytes: people will still defend 
Pirsig's version as the best one because they believe it to 
be so, and people will still rightly fight about just what 
Pirsig's version was that is better.  But maybe it would 
have produced better conversation, that people who get 
hung up on correctness over betterness (biography over 
philosophy, as I like to say) would have been implicitly 
chastened better.  But I can't help but think that the 
underlying tendency to be an acolyte cuts across such 
rhetorical barriers, because every MoQ begins with an act 
of interpretation: just what _is_ the fundamental idea of 
Quality.  

Even limiting yourself to one idea, and speculatively 
getting people started in a myriad of directions, will still 
produce the interpretive element of isolating just what 
Pirsig thought it was that we are to begin from.  I offered 
one version ("value precedes everything else"), but if this 
field of inquiry we are extending is to differentiate itself 
from any other field opened up by every other philosopher 
when they adumbrate a system (_every_ system is a field 
of inquiry waiting for practitioners), then it must have a 
grounding somewhere, and the only one I can imagine is in 
Pirsig's writings.  

If you consider yourself to be a Pirsigian, it will be because 
you have a distinct take on what the metonym "Pirsig" 
stands for, and if it doesn't in some way hook up to a 
correct apprehension of _something_ in the writings of an 
author named "Pirsig," then why on earth call yourself a 
Pirsigian who's working out a metaphysics of Quality?  Hell, 
you might be wrong about the one thing you are hooking 
yourself up to, in which case every other Pirsigian will 
rightly deny you the title.  What if Ham called himself a 
Pirsigian because he identified, willy-nilly, his notion of 
Substance with Quality?  I think we'd be right to say, "No, 
that's absurd; you are not a Pirsigian because you hold 
nothing in common with Pirsig, which I can show by 
referring to the texts Pirsig wrote."  If Ham denied your 
claim, what you would be doing is fighting an interpretive 
battle with Ham, in addition to a separate battle about 
why your philosophy is better than his, whatever what 
one calls either one.

If you already can't distinguish between biography and 
philosophy, nothing a writer can do will help.  If you 
already can't tell the difference between an exegetical 
issue and a philosophical one, then the only thing to do 
is to talk about neither biography nor philosophy, but 
metaphilosophcal methodology: practical distinctions 
between different activities (like between biography and 
philosophy).  I guess we might read his "papal bull" 
comment in line with, humorously, trying to cut that 
distinction.  But I think it was a spectacular failure on 
that front.  

(Though no worse than any of the _huge_ number of 
post-Foucauldian cultural studies practitioners who think 
working in a "discipline" is a bad thing, and should be 
avoided: as if they wanted to get up in front of students 
and scholars and distinctly _not_ forward an assertion to 
be taken up or rejected.  Which means it would have 
been easier to not saying anything at all.  What 
post-Foucauldian theorists don't realize is that there is 
no other option than an assertion in the constitution of 
knowledge, and that if you don't want to evacuate that 
space, you might just reject Platonism instead of the idea 
of a "discipline" or "demarcated field of inquiry."  It's a lot 
less confusing and contradictory.)

Matt

p.s.  "Pirsig Institutionalized" is in the moq.org Forum, and 
there's a link in my rightnav bar on my website 
(pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com), and also a page with links 
to the essays with recent commentary under the link at 
the top of the page, "Moq.org Essays."
 		 	   		  
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