[MD] Are There Bad Questions?: Pirsig

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

What a coinkidink. I was just thinking about Pirsig's chess metaphor
for philosphical systems yesterday. A friend of mine gave a talk on
atheism at a high school for a Diversity Day. He was talking about the
problem of dogma when a teacher accused him of clinging to the dogma
of empiricism. I asked if he had called himself an empiricist and he
said he hadn't. I recommended avoiding ever identifying with any
philosophical isms because he would make no friends and hand his
enemies a line of attack since every ism has its set of counter
arguments.  Actual books about chess openings are about defenses as
well. Despite DMBs view of empirisism, you can actually get *accused*
of empiricism as my friend recently was. Likewise, you can be
*accused* of being a realist or an idealist or a materialist or an
anti-realist or any other sort of proponent of an ism, and defending
that ism will always put you on the defensive. I think the best
opening is just to claim that we ought to have good reasons for
believing what we believe and at least occasionally stop to ask
ourselves why we do what we do.

Your list of quotes in the progression of thoughts on systems in
Pirsig is interesting. One I would add and maybe you'll have some
thoughts on is that bit in the Bagini interview where Pirsig says in
defense of the uniqueness of his system that is the only one that
began with the question "what is Quality?" (why is THAT relevant??)
which I guess also relates to his being interested in reading a
biuography of James and his speculation in Lila that "maybe the
ultimate truth about the world isn't history or sociology but
biography."

Then there is also that funny bit in the Bagini interview that
probably relates to the importance of systems about whether the MOQ
ought to be taken as a metaphor or taken literally.

Best,
Steve





>
> “By even using the term “Quality” he had already violated
> the
> nothingness of mystic reality.  The
> use of the term “Quality” set up
> a pile of questions of its own that have
> nothing to do with mystic
> reality and walks away leaving them unaswered.  Even the name,
> “Quality,” was a kind of
> definition since it tended to associate
> mystic reality with certain fixed and
> limited understandings.
> Already he was
> in trouble.  Was the mystic reality of
> the universe
> really more immanent in the higher-priced cuts of meat in the
> butcher
> shop?  These were “Quality” meants weren’t
> they?  Was
> the butcher using the term
> incorrectly?  Phaedrus had no answers.
>
>
>
> . . . [ellipsis Pirsig’s] That was the problem this morning
> too, with
> Rigel.  Phaedrus had no
> answers.  If you’re going to talk about
> Quality at all you have to be ready to answer someone like Rigel.
> You have to have a ready-made Metaphysics of
> Quality that you
> can snap at him like some catechism.  Phaedrus didn’t have a
> Catechism of Quality
> and that’s why he got hit.” (124)
>
>
>
> Pirsig considers metaphysics to be a good thing to do
> because it
> gives you an answer to people like Rigel, people who insist on
> certain questions.  The analogy with
> Catholic practices in
> particular highlights what Pirsig has in mind.  “Catechism” is from
> Greek roots that mean an “indoctrination.”  This has bad
> connotations to our ears now, as
> does the other name Catholics
> have for it: dogma.  But all Pirsig is highlighting is how what he
> is
> lacking is a systematic way to keep things straight in his line of
> thought,
> and how to answer people who press him.
>
>
>
> Pirsig immediately goes on to analogize metaphysics with
> chess,
> and writes this:
>
>
>
> “Trying to create a perfect metaphysics is like trying to
> create a
> perfect chess strategy, one that will win every time.  You can’t do
> it.  It’s out of the range of human
> capability.  No matter what
> position you
> take on a metaphysical question someone will always
> start asking questions that
> will lead to more positions that lead to
> more questions in this endless
> intellectual chess game.  The game
> is
> supposed to stop when it is agreed that a particular line of
> reasoning is
> illogical.  This is supposed to be
> similar to a checkmate.
> But conflicting
> positions go on for centuries without any such
> checkmate being agreed upon.”
> (125)
>
>
>
> I’m not sure Pirsig ever comments further on the purpose of
> this
> paragraph.  But we might notice that
> Pirsig’s subsumption of
> “reasonable” to “good” from ZMM should still be in effect, which
> may explain why “illogic” does
> not always hold sway.  And further,
> we
> might imagine that Pirsig did have
> his Catechism of Quality at
> the ready when Rigel comes calling—would Rigel have
> been
> blown away?  Should he have?  There is no
> indication in these
> early pages, and particularly with the above paragraph,
> that Pirsig
> believes that had Phaedrus the MoQ ready to snap, it would have
> changed Rigel’s mind.  It would have,
> rather, continued the
> conversation (until, perhaps, Rigel tired out
> first).  Consider, too,
> the fact that
> when Rigel returns at the close, there’s no indication
> that any of Phaedrus’ “answers”
> are what lead Rigel to come back
> (for
> more on this curious aspect see my “Prospectus”
> http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2006/04/prospectus-for-idiosyncratic-and.html).
>
>
>
> What sometimes gets lost in metaphysical system-building is
> the
> person doing the building, and what the building is for.  For Pirsig,
> there is a strong indication that
> metaphysics is for keeping yourself
> straight in conversation—consider Pirsig’s
> introduction to Lila’s
> Child where he
> picks up the chess metaphor again and says that
> “real chess is the game you
> play with your neighors.  Real chess is
> ‘muddling
> through.’  Real chess is the triumph of
> mental organization
> over complex experience.
> And so is real philosophy” (viii).
>
> “Muddling through” is one of Dewey’s favorite images, one that
> Rorty
> loved to promote.  Between Pirsig’s
> lament about getting
> broad-sided by Rigel and the Catechism of Quality, there’s
> Pirsig’s
> chapter on metaphysical platypi—the outcome of previously made
> cuts in
> the metaphysical firmament, previously made choices about
> which questions
> deserve answers.  Pirsig says early in
> that chapter
> that “saying that a Metaphysics of Quality is false and a
> subject-object metaphysics is true is like saying that rectangular
> coordinates
> are true and polar coordinates are false” (Lila
> 115,
> Ch. 8).  Both are used, are
> determined better or worse, relative to
> the purpose with which you are using
> them.  The figure standing
> there weighing
> the options between the two alternatives is the
> philosopher, who sometimes goes
> missing in the attempt to limn
> the structure of reality.