[MD] DMB and Me

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

I enjoyed reading you blog post:

http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2010/01/discussion-with-dave-buchanan.html

I liked the "pluristic monism" notion. In Pirsig's case, I see him as
first dissolving dictotomies especially the subject-object one (into a
monism), then suggested he nice distinctions such as
romantic-classical and static-dynamic (pluralistic monism).

I'm wonderring right now whether Pirsig ended up enforcing a dichotomy
of his own. Or was he just making a useful distinction between
primary/secondary experience and static/dynamic quality? I'd like to
read him as suggesting a useful distinction (within metaphysics taken
like Kuhnian science as philosophical problem solving) rather than
enforcing a dichotomy (traditional metaphysics).

I suppose I pretty much asked him that in the letter I wrote him, but
didn't get an answer. Clearly Bo takes Pirsig as doing traditional
metaphysics such that DQ/sq IS reality. I prefer to read Pirsig as
saying Quality is reality. DQ/sq is a nice tool for thinking about
reality.

I always took DMB to be in the second camp, but I can see how his
insistence on the primary/secondary dichotomy from which he criticizes
Rorty for getting things all wrong may rather put him a version of
"Bo" side of the argument--not anywhere that I should think that DMB
would want to be.

Best,
Steve