[MD] The Birth of Tragedy/CH1 and the MOQ

[david buchanan]

Matt said to Arlo:
... I think centering on Nietzsche as carving out a conceptual space that is similar to the conceptual space that Pirsig would later try to carve out is an important direction in comparative, intellectual-historical analysis.  When I was assigned ZMM in Phil 101, my professor ran very successfully the parallel between Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian and Pirsig's early classic/romantic split.

dmb says:
I heard Rorty say that from a European perspective Pragmatism is just what the Americans could get out of Nietzsche. The crowd laughed at that. Interestingly, I think, an inquiry into values was central to Nietzsche, James and Pirsig and despite their very different and very literary styles, they can all speak to professionals and non-professionals simultaneously. They all do philosophy with the soul of an artist. Dewey too. The four horsemen of the apocalypse, four awesome dudes smashing Platonism to smithereens. It should be a movie.

What really impressed me about Nietzsche's "Tragedy" was the way he attacked "aesthetic Socratism". I took this to be totally in line with Pirsig's complaints about the subordination of Quality to intellect and his attempt to resurrect the reputation of the Sophists as very much like Nietzsche's aim to restore the Dionysian element. We can see the Socratic demand for intelligibility at work throughout Plato's dialogues but, interestingly, his "Ion" was at the top of BOTH reading lists when I took Philosophy of Art and Philosophy of Religion. In both cases, Art and Religion, our philosophical investigation begins with a denigration and subordination of Art and Religion.  
 Matt said:
Since Nietzsche was working in a post-Hegelian intellectual world, I think it would be interesting to compare the cultural stories Hegel, Nietzsche, and Pirsig tell in trying to explain how we got to where we are.  Because all three think that story-telling is an important piece of our intellectual armament as far as figuring out how to move forward.  And all three were reacting to directly to Kant.  But there are significant differences between them, and it would help clarify Pirsig's position in cultural history to see how it was different than his predecessors.


dmb says:
Hegel? I don't get that. Pirsig explicitly denies Hegel in both of his books and James battled against the Absolute for most of his life. Isn't Hegel the ultimate Rationalist while James and Pirsig are radically empirical? I can hardly think of anyone less comparable.