[MD] The Hero's journey

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Matt:
Think about this way; when Pirsig gets around to the point where he is explicitly identifying his MOQ with James's radical empiricism, with mainstream American Pragmatism and Instrumentalism, he also thinks it's worth mentioning Hegel in order to rule him out as saying something comparable. Why do you suppose he felt the need to deny Hegel at that point? "The MOQ 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." (Lila 366)

Marsha replied:
Here's what "reason and evidence" looks like.  Notice there is no exception made for American Pragmatism.  RMP (2005): "The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic tradition, although obviously it was not written in a vacuum. ... The Metaphysics of Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value is not part of any philosophic tradition that I know of. I  have proposed it because it seems to me that when you look into it carefully it makes more sense than all the other things the world is supposed to be composed of."  (RMP, 'A Brief Summary of the MOQ')


dmb says:
You have interrupted a conversation and changed the subject to dispute a claim nobody made. Is that what reason and evidence looks like to you? My claim was that Pirsig identifies the MOQ with pragmatism (while denying Hegel) and that's exactly what Pirsig does in the supporting textual evidence, which you deleted from your response. On top of the that your objection is irrelevant and dishonestly manufactured, I've already addressed this baseless, bogus point several times. Talk to Mark. He's learned how to use your malicious nonsense as a rhetorical exercise program. But if the conversation starts with half a sentence that's been taken out context and misconstrued (in order to have a debate that's already been had), then I have absolutely no interest in that conversation.