[MD] Changes in 2011

[david buchanan]

John said:
.., I find a great deal of worthy discussion there concerning Royce's congruence and the MoQ - that here there really is something which "It and the MOQ can be spliced together with no difficulty into a broader explanation of the same thing".

dmb says:
No, jon. That's exactly what the evidence does NOT say. This is a good example of what I've been complaining about. The textual evidence says "it" can be spliced together with the MOQ and you're trying to pull some kind of dishonest trick wherein "it" is Royce's Absolutism. But that's not what "it" is. Look at the evidence!

Pirsig said:
... the MOQ rejects [REJECTS!!!] the metaphysical assertion that the fundamental reality of the world is idea. But the description of Bradley as an idealist is completely incorrect. Bradley’s fundamental assertion is that the reality of the world is intellectually unknowable, and that defines him as a mystic. [Bradley's assertion is NOT idealism and so it is NOT what the MOQ rejects.] Both he and the MOQ are expressing what Aldous Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy," which is perennial, I believe, because it happens to be true. [The perennial philosophy is philosophical mysticism, NOT idealism.] Bradley has given an excellent description of what the MOQ calls Dynamic Quality and an excellent rational justification for its intellectual acceptance. It and the MOQ can be spliced together with no difficulty into a broader explanation of the same thing. [The thing that can be spliced together with the MOQ is BRADLEY's mystical assertion, NOT idealism.]

Now, I've already been through this with you several times. [Where's the apology for your slander to the contrary, by the way?] I honestly don't know how to make it any clearer. I've repeatedly explained every sentence in this passage to you several times and yet you still use it to support the very thing it rejects. This only proves once again that you are not honestly facing up to the evidence. As Pirsig points out, Quality and the Absolute are in some sense opposites.

Pirisg said:
"Rhetorically, the word "absolute" conveys nothing except rigidity and permanence and authoritarianism and remoteness. "Quality," on the other hand conveys flexibility, impermanence, here-and-now-ness and freedom."

Likewise, at the end of chapter 29, Pirsig says:
"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth-century American philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the test of the true is the good. It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience." 

More from the Copleston annotations:
"This is what the MOQ states. Right away it diverges from the absolute idealism that follows. Quality is a phenomenal reality."

"Ferrier’s philosophy demonstrates how far from some idealism the MOQ is."

"The reason he “knows not why” is that he has abandoned intelligence for religious conformity.  Actually Green is saying things that are very close to the MOQ and it is angering to see him curtseying in this way to medieval dogmatic superstition.  The selling out of intellectual truth to the social icons of organized religion is seen by the MOQ as an evil act."

"Either Copleston is summarizing too much or Green’s philosophy is rambling and disconnected here.  This is just a smorgasbord of pleasant platitudes."

"It seems to me that Green’s fashion is not so much non-committal as half-formed.  He pursues the meaning of his terms only insofar as they defend a stand-pat, status-quo, do-nothing conservatism. When he gets into “spirit” and “God” and “man’s station in life” we see this motive more clearly."

"If Bradley had stopped here the MOQ would agree. But he didn’t stop there and the MOQ strongly disagrees that the universal will is the will of the social organism.  Hitler couldn’t have agreed more."

"In this case it is not only not obvious, it is wrong. At this point I see only evidence that Bradley is advocating a totalitarian society."

dmb continues:
There are points here and there where Pirsig finds some things to agree with, but the various strains of Absolutism bring with them things like "religious conformity" "dogmatic superstition", "the selling out of intellectual truth" to organized religion", "pleasant platitudes", "status-quo, do-nothing conservatism" and even form of totalitarianism with which "Hilter couldn't have agreed more". I mean, don't you see that Pirsig not only disagrees philosophically, he is horrified and disgusted by absolute idealism all along the way. And yes, James was friends with Royce but James was nauseated by absolute idealism. And that's pretty much how I feel about it too. Why can't you just accept the fact that they don't like it? It rubs them in all the wrong ways. Deal with it.