[MD] dualistic rationality

[Fam. Kintziger-Karaca]

Hi gang
static /dynamic

These 'salient parts' that we become conscious of make up the universe of knowledge - such things as the self, heat, stoves and so on. They constitute our conscious reality but they emerge firstly from primary experience. For Pirsig these things were, in ZAMM, intellectually constructed analogues of reality. In LILA however we see a development from that idea. This is made possible because in that second text Pirsig undertakes a subdivision of his primary metaphysical category of dynamic quality. Subjects and objects emerge from dynamic quality as static patterns of quality. Reality is dynamic quality, objects and persons are static forms of that reality (and therefore not themselves real to the extent to which they are static). The simple and complete reason for the emergence of a static pattern is that it is good or valuable (at least it is valuable initially; static patterns, in Pirsig's scheme, will always lose their value and become negative in time simply because they are static things in a dynamic reality. The conditions under which a particular static pattern emerged because it was good to do so will change dynamically, thus leaving literally 'no good reason' for the continuation of that pattern. Pirsig's texts abound with examples of this but perhaps the most insightful example of a static pattern becoming negative is the dualistic rationality which is the static intellectual pattern that Pirsig believes so urgently needs to be changed...to be made dynamic again. We will discuss this more fully in chapter 3 where we examine Pirsig's concept of morality). If we return to Peirce's primary metaphysical distinction of reality/existence, we see there a strong connection with this division of dynamic quality/static quality.  

Document of Dean summers , Robertpirsig.org

Static/dynamic,

Adrie