[MD] Idealism

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 4:40 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dan said:
> In LILA'S CHILD, Robert Pirsig states that philosophic idealism would help give a better handle on the MOQ. The way I understand it, he feels that scientific materialism is the prevailing cultural thinking in present day Western culture, but philosophic idealism was the prevailing thought during Victorian times. He isn't saying that the MOQ is to be identified with idealism, but rather both idealism and materialism are needed to form a more complete understanding with the MOQ.
>
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> I think that's right. James's pragmatism was meant to be a blend Idealism and Empiricism. Pirsig's expanded rationality is supposed to blend classic and romantic thinking in the same way James wanted to blend the tender-minded and tough-minded philosophies.
> It's interesting to watch Pirsig's reactions to Copleston because the text so often explains Idealism by opposing it to empiricism. One can see that Pirsig is sometimes taking sides with the empiricists and sometimes he's joining the Idealists against them. As a result, a person could extract a fairly nuanced position and otherwise get a sense of the finer points.

Dan:
Yes, I tend to agree. It was great of Robert Pirsig to take his time
and annotate, and great of Anthony McWatt to share.

>dmb:
> Thanks for posting the 1961 letter from Pirsig.
>

Dan:

Oh you are welcome. I have been trying to remember just who it was who
sent me that. Was it Anthony? Ian? Someone else? I found it lurking in
my Robert Pirsig folder but cannot seem to recall just where it came
from. It is a gem though.

dmb:
> It doesn't quite get the idea across, but basically I think quality in thought and speech comes from within. None of the methods and tricks will help until you have something to say, until you have your own internal goal, until you have a point and purpose, even if that is still inarticulate. Without that, you just end up adopting some external goal or parroting somebody else's style. Or probably both. The child begins his poem about bamboo by thinking of all the words that rhyme with bamboo. The grown-up begins his poem by spending a lot of time with bamboo. And if the truth about bamboo doesn't rhyme then neither does his poem.
>

Dan:
I recall seeing an old movie called Finding Forester. It was a bit
hokey... a kid breaks into an apartment and is caught by its occupant,
who turns out to be a famous author who has turned his back on the
world. The author takes an interest in the kid and gives him one of
his stories to re-write. The kid uses the title and the first
paragraph, then composes his story in his own words. When he turns it
in for a school project, the teacher recognizes the title and the
first paragraph as the real author's story, which had been published
in the New Yorker. He calls the kid out for plagarism, telling him
that unless he had the author's permission, he is in serious danger of
being thrown out of school. In the end, the reclusive author shows up
at the school to vindicate the kid. But it gives an idea of how we all
write... we take others words and make them our own.

Thank you,

Dan

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