[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[david buchanan]

Marsha said:
Seems that in October 2005, RMP decided to clarify his position. 

dmb says: 
Not at all. Pirsig was summarizing the MOQ in 2005 and the part you posted only repeats what he'd already said in the opening pages of chapter 26 in Lila. There he explains the similarities between his ideas and James's were pointed out by a reviewer only AFTER his first book was published. 
"A review of his book in the Harvard Educational Review had said that his idea of truth was the same as James. The London Times said he was a follower of Aristotle. Psychology today said he was a follower of Hegel. If everyone was right he had certainly achieved a remarkable synthesis. But the comparison with James interested him most because it looked like there might be something to it.
It was also very good philosophological news. James is usually considered a very solid mainstream American philosopher, whereas Phaedrus first book had ofter been described as a 'cult' book. He had a feeling that people who used that term WISHED it was a cult book and would go away like a cult book, perhaps because it was interfering with some philosophological cultism of their own. But if philosophologists were willing to accept the idea that the MOQ is an offshoot of James' work, then that 'cult' charge was shattered. And this was good political news in a field where politics is a big factor.
In his undergraduate days Phaedrus had given James very short shrift... " (324)