[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[david buchanan]

Andre said:
James was a gentleman John. He once wrote to Royce: 'I am sorry you say we don't see the truth in the same light, for the only thing we see differently is the Absolute, and surely such a trifle as that is not a thing for two gentlemen to be parted by'.  But, in preparation of his Edinburgh lectures(later becoming known as the Gifford Lectures) he wrote Eliot (the then Harvard president)about how he intended,...to 'destroy both [Royce] and the Absolute,...'.( R.Richardson, William James In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, (p 391)  I call these very, very strong words used by the gentleman he was. At the end of the sentence he softens again but the intensity of his feelings regarding the Absolute are clear. Needles to add, unless you really want to pick a fight, he was against Royce the Absolutist and not against Royce as his friend. (Pfff)

dmb says:
As usual, I agree with Andre. "The intensity of his feelings regarding the Absolute are clear" and "he intended to destroy" the Absolute. As I understand it, one could say exactly the same thing about Pirsig. In Lila, he tells us plainly and unequivocally that Quality is "NOT some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute". In the annotations, Pirsig mocks the Absolute and he grows increasingly annoyed as it becomes clearer and clearer that the Absolutists are just fancy theologians.