[MD] Emerson and Pirsig

[david buchanan]

Matt said:
... Pirsig's a true disciple of Emerson in this regard, who says in "The American Scholar" that we must have self-trust in our instincts.  But how do you tell if an instinct has had its essence voided of the "courtly muses of Europe," in whose conceptual place Pirsig puts "static patterns"?  Emerson says he grounds his hope for the self-reliant American in the "doctrine of one mind," the same thing Descartes posited in articulating his notion of reason as being the same for all.


dmb says;
You lost me right here in the first few steps.
What does it mean to void the essence of an instinct? 
How is self-reliance grounded in "the doctrine of one mind"?
What is the doctrine of one mind?
Please explain.