[MD] grmbl

[Andre Broersen]

Bodvar to Adrie, Arlo, All!:

This is the great misconception that Arlo and his like harbor. They claim that
SOM is just one intellectual pattern and the MOQ another, oblivious of
Pirsig having made a great point of the container logic. the MOQ
cannot be contained by a subset of itself!!!.

Andre:
What Mr. Pirsig was talking about when referring to the 'container logic' was the quarrel within anthropology.
'What many were trying to do, evidently, was get out of all these metaphysical quarrels by condemning all theory, by agreeing not to even talk about such theoretical reductionist things as what savages do in general. They restricted themselves to what their particular savage happened to do on Wednesday. That was scientifically safe all right-and scientifically useless'.

The issue was one of being able to generalize from data which was declared unacceptable in the field.

'...the search for broad generalization...has virtually been declared unscientific by twentieth-century academic, particularistic American anthropology'.

But, as Mr. Pirsig continues:'A science without generalisation is no science at all'.(E=mc2)

What Mr. Pirsig is doing is attacking the scientific basis (lack of values) and method of anthropology: '...the [scientific] purity was so constrictive it had all but strangled the field'.

And then comes the 'wacko science' bit... the container logic bit...'...shelf after shelf with volume after dusty volume about this savage and that savage...'. (LILA p,36 of my e-copy)

The MOQ makes one huge metaphysical generalization:'The idea that the world is composed of nothing but moral value...'. (LILA, p65 of my e-copy)).

This postulate, this theory, this intellectual pattern of value has no difficulty at all regarding the so called container logic. Same as the dictionary analogy. It becomes a problem when 'dictionary' as described in the dictionary is considered unscientific as generalization and becomes unacceptable.

And stop using the expression 'sub-set' Bodvar...it is misleading. You are referring to a level of values, in this case the intellectual level, as the 'latest' evolutionary achievement having emerged from the 'lower' levels.

Anyway, this is my take on it.