[MD] DMB and Me

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Steve,

Steve said:
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).

Matt:
This is where I think things have become tricky, and I've 
been slowly evolving my articulations of pragmatism to 
reflect this.  It started, I think, with conversations with Paul 
Turner, but it has continued with, for instance, the kinds of 
things I say to Ron.

The trick is to think of "distinction" first as a primitive 
term--the act of distinguishing, let us say, is what "thinking" 
is.  The second step is think of "utility" (or "value") as the 
arch-mechanism of making and then keeping a distinction.  
So far, this is all just repetition of Pirsig.

The third step is to see that "enforcing" a distinction is what 
we do to any distinction that is useful and want to pass on 
to our children so that they will also deal well with problems 
we think we've dealt well with.

This third step is why I've begun to move away from 
formulating the problem with Platonism as the difference 
between "suggesting a useful distinction" and "enforcing a 
dichotomy."  This formulation is why it becomes easy to 
see, for example, me as suggesting Platonic dichotomies--I 
want to enforce my distinctions, don't I?  Well, this 
obscures, then, the difference between Platonism and 
Pirsigianism.  And then we have to cast around for a better 
way of stating it (rather than riding out the paradoxicalness, 
which some people are comfortable in doing).

Because every distinction is made relative to some purpose, 
I've tried more and more to formulate the pragmatist's 
problem with Platonism as a problem in _purposes_.  
However, it is still true that some tools (i.e. distinctions) 
lend themselves to some purposes better than others.  
While it is theoretically true that there is nothing inherent 
about the use of a hammer on a nail (and so we dodge 
representationalism), it is also practically true that it is 
easier to use a hammer on a nail than it is a tractor.  The 
nail will probably get stuck in the tractor wheel, though it 
is possible to get the job done.

This requires of us a very precarious balancing act in 
describing the troubles of Platonism, no less than because 
the wire is moving (along in history and according to whom 
we are communicating with).  We have to judge every 
purpose and every tool on a case-by-case basis, and the 
cases are continually evolving.  I think this might be one 
reason why I've become so confusing: I've come to think 
that it is a lot harder and more complicated to get hold of 
this thing called "Platonism" (what Pirsig called "SOM") than 
I used to.  I used to be able to say, "Bah, it's subject/object 
distinction" or "the appearance/reality distinction" or "mirror 
metaphors" or "the quest for absolute certainty."  But 
because of the dialectical pressure of, for instance, people 
at this website, I've come to understand the extraordinary 
flexibility of tools and purposes in the course of lived 
experience.  Believing that is a curse if you want to build a 
systematic philosophy, because you'll constantly be plagued 
by doubt--"what if I'm just being parochial; what if saying X 
now becomes bad later, and I'll want to say Y"  So, my 
articulation of Platonism and the goals of amateur philosophy 
have become more involuted as I try to articulate both 
myself and the possibility that others have different selves 
(and purposes and tools) at the same time.

Did Pirsig enforce a dichotomy?  Well, he certainly enforced 
a distinction.  The question is not whether the tools he 
used have been put to use on Platonic problems (they 
certainly have), but whether the hammer he's swinging 
occasionally hit a nail/purpose that is deemed "Platonic"--i.e., 
one has to 1) sort out a set of purposes called "Platonic," 
2) convince people that these purposes are bad, 3) convince 
people that a purpose that shows up in Pirsig is indeed a 
version of this "Platonic purpose" and 4) convince people that 
Pirsig didn't need to swing at that nail.  I think all four of 
those are distinguishable, though muddily intertwined.

Does Pirsig's "pre-intellectual cutting edge of experience" tool, 
for example, satisfy a Platonic itch which we should just ignore?

I have no idea anymore, but I prefer just not to talk about it 
in case it does.  Call that the James fallacy of not believing in 
love until love is proven to exist (when the only way to prove 
love exists is to believe in it), but I already call something 
else "love" and it seems to work for me, and as far as I can 
tell, what I call "love" and what James called "love" (in this 
made-up myth about my relationship with James and Dave) 
are, indeed, the same object, though said with different 
accents (and despite the fact that people are trying to 
convince me that that isn't a different accent I'm hearing, 
but a different language).

Matt
 		 	   		  
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