[MD] Philosophy as Biography

[david buchanan]

Phaedrus to Lila:
"I've just had feelings that maybe the ultimate truth about the world isn't history or sociology but biography."

Steve said:
..He [Pirsig] said that his philosophy is unique because it starts with a practical question about quality in rhetoric or something like that. When I read that I remember thinking, Why is THAT important??? Why should we care about the story behind the ideas rather than just the ideas?



dmb says:
It's important because the question he sought to answer was not taken from a philosophy book. It was not a classic dilemma or a traditional philosophological problem. The question grew out of his normal daily activities. In fact, the autobiographical sketch in ZAMM tells us that Phaedrus had flunked himself out of college because he was obsessed with deep questions about the basis of scientific knowledge and the seemingly endless proliferation of hypotheses, had been inspired by the non-Western thinking of his friends in Korea, was so enthused by reading Northrop on the way home that he decided to return to college to study philosophy and when a Bachelor's degree wasn't enough he went to India to study Eastern philosophy. He was searching and searching for years but by the time he was hired to teach rhetoric at Bozeman, he had given up. He says it's very important to understand that he had given up. He had switched to journalism, earned a Master's degree in it, did some creative writing and some technical and otherwise settled into a middle-aged, middle-class, midwestern lifestyle. It's not that he had found any answers so that he was ready to move on. He just let it go. But then came Sarah's practical question: Are you teaching quality?

The motorcycle is used as a miniature study in the art of rationality itself. He uses cycle repair to talk about what it means to be a motorcycle scientist, to be an artful mechanic, to identify with one's work with a Zen-like, caring engagement. He talks about what the bike is from Hume's perspective, from Kant's perspective. He uses it as a metaphor for working on one's self. But the whole business begins as a practical problem. The development of all these lofty ideas can be traced back to one bad road trip, wherein he and Chris broke down in the middle of nowhere, at night in the rain. O man, what a drag. Our Zen mechanic began his biking days with a real bonehead move. He felt like idiot when he discovered much later that his motorcycle was simply out of gas. The liquid he heard sloshing around was in the reserve tank and all he had to do was open a valve and they would have been on their way.

And then there is all that talk about culture-bearers and contrarians as the agents of cultural evolution. In the process of working out their own personal problems they end up solving broader, cultural problems. The solution is also framed in terms of what you can do with your own head, heart and hands. The real motorcycle you're working on is yourself, he says. Man is the measure of all thing, a participant in the creation of all things. Everyone is engaged in a battle against the static patterns of their own life, he says. As David Granger would put it, Pirsig work is all about the art of living. That's where ideas get tested and used and that's why ideas matter. The point and purpose of concepts is to serve life.