[MD] Taking words Seriously

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,



On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 11:47 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> dmb said to Matt and Steve:
> ..., the problem IS philosophical... The problem IS a result of "our lousy concepts". ...The whole point of the MOQ, as Paul Turner explained so well, is to expand and improve rationality. The aim is a root expansion of rationality. That's WHY we care about DQ and why it's so central. It's the key to the expansion of our philosophies. Pirsig says, "the thing to be analyzed, is not quality, but those peculiar habits of thought called 'squareness' that sometimes prevent us from seeing it. ..The subject for analysis, the patient on the table, was no longer Quality, but analysis itself. Quality was healthy and in good shape. Analysis, however, seemed to have something wrong with it that prevented it from seeing the obvious." (ZAMM 218-9)
>
> Steve (obliviously) replied:
> ...Having the wrong ideas doesn't take one out of reality. ..Concepts don't take one closer to or further from reality. ...The point is that "not being in touch with DQ" can't be what is wrong with our concepts. ...
>
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> As is so often the case, you are exactly wrong and you stubbornly persist in this wrongness even in the face of explicit evidence to the contrary. Pirsig says our peculiar habits of thought prevent us from seeing Quality and your response is simply to say our thought habits don't and can't prevent us from seeing Quality. That's not an argument. It's just an empty, unsupported, nonsensical denial of what the author plainly says. And since you deleted the textual from your response, the only thing you've proven is your own contemptible dishonesty and/or stupidity. Is that your aim, Steve? If your goal is to convince me that you are incapable of talking or thinking, congratulations.

Steve:
You've misunderstood what I am doing. I suspect that you saw no
argument only because you are looking for me to be arguing that Pirsig
agrees with me rather than you. I am not saying that at all. I think I
am explicitly _disagreeing_ with certain parts of Pirsig's texts on
this point. I think Pirsig's primary/secondary distinction works
against some of the other things he wants to do and doesn't do some of
the things he hopes it will do (nor should he hope it will).

As for your ZAMM quote...

"Squareness may be succinctly and yet thoroughly defined as an
inability to see quality before it's been intellectually defined, that
is, before it gets all chopped up into words...."

Here is working on his Classic/Romantic distinction here, right?
(which he himself ultimately rejects). The "squares" of course do see
quality as he explains in ZAMM. It's just from a Classical rather than
Romantic perspective.

"The subject for analysis, the patient on the table, was no longer
Quality, but analysis itself. Quality was healthy and in good shape."

On this we agree. Primary experience, DQ, is in good shape no matter
what happens to our concepts which are secondary to DQ.

Best,
Steve