[MD] Taking off the glasses?

[david buchanan]

Steve said:
As I understand it, the idea that reality has a true nature was already out of style when Lila came out. Pirsig was offering a fix for metaphysics when philosophy had already become anti-metaphysical. The question of the true nature of reality was no longer "live." Post-pragmatism in the US and post-existentialism in Europe, philosophers were no longer so inclined to think of reality as the sort of thing that has a true nature that needs to be discovered. The mystic's complaint that language can never capture the true nature of reality doesn't resonate with anyone who doesn't see language as having that goal to begin with. Language doesn't _fail_ at capturing the true nature of reality if that was never the function of language.

dmb replies:

I think you are conflating the mystic's objection with the objections of anti-metaphysical philosophies like logical positivism. The quote you're talking about comes from chapter five, where Pirsig says metaphysics "has two kinds of opponents". 

"The first are the philosophers of science, most particularly the group known as logical positivists, who say that only the natural sciences can legitimately investigate the nature of reality, and that metaphysics is simply a collection of unprovable assertions that are unnecessary to the scientific observation of reality.  For a true understanding of reality, metaphysics is too 'mystical.' This is clearly the group with which Franz Boas [and the Vienna Circle] ..belongs.   The second group of opponents are the mystics. ...Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific'.  ..Phaedrus thought it portended very well for his Metaphysics of Quality that BOTH mysticism and science reject metaphysics for completely opposite reasons."  (Lila 63)

The scientific empiricists think it's too mystical and the philosophical mystics think it's too scientific. The difference between these two kinds of opponents is quite clear and neat. But you are blending and blurring the mystic's complaint with the complaints of post-postivist philosophies. I suppose you and Matt realize that analytic philosophy grew out of logical positivism and shares that anti-metaphysical scientific attitude with them. Wittgenstein, for example, studied under Bertrand Russell, the father of analytic philosophy and the Vienna Circle formed, in part, around his early work. Analytic philosophy has dominated the english speaking world and that's what nearly every university in the U.S. teaches, as opposed to Continental philosophy. Because of people like Rorty, analytic philosophers have become critical of their own tradition and the aims of their own school. That's the context in which today's philosophers deny that we can get at "the true nature of reality". They are denying the assumptions of positivism, of analytic philosophy, of linguistic philosophy but it's not meant to address the assumptions or views of philosophical mystics. 

"Positivism is a philosophy that emphasizes science as the only source of knowledge. It sharply distinguishes between fact and value, and is hostile to religion and traditional metaphysics. It is an outgrowth of empiricism, the idea that all knowledge must come from experience, and is suspicious of any thought, even a scientific statement, that is incapable of being reduced to direct observation. Philosophy, as far as positivism is concerned, is limited to the analysis of scientific language.   Phaedrus had taken a course in symbolic logic from a member of the famed Vienna Circle, ...But even then the assertion that metaphysics is meaningless sounded false to him. As long as you're inside a logical, coherent universe of thought you can't escape metaphysics. Logical positivism's criteria for 'meaningfulness' were pure metaphysics, he thought." (Lila 65)

These so-called anti-metaphysical empiricists rejected metaphysics for metaphysical reasons, not empirical reasons. And they had a very narrow conception of what counted as empirical, namely direct observation. This is the epitome of SOM and scientific objectivity, the very metaphysical assumptions that has also produced the blind spot with respect to Quality, which is the mystic reality, not the scientific reality of atomic facts, physical objects or logical, mathematical relations. The "fundamental nature of reality" that the mystics are talking about has nothing to do with the scientific reality of the positivists or analytic philosophers but you and Matt are always treating mystical claims as if they the claims of Platonists like Frege or unreformed scientific philosophers. 

Bertrand Russell thought reality was composed of atomic facts. The mystic says reality is undivided. These are very opposite visions. To treat the objections of one as if they were the objections of the other is to confuse things in a pretty epic way. The claims of mystics can't rightly be treated or handled as if they were the claims of positivism or scientific objectivity. But basically, that's what you and Matt have been doing for many, many moons. Is there any chance that this explanation helped?