[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Ian,

Matt said:
What this local creation of "one use of DQ" from Pirsig cries out for 
is a systematic supplementation of a laundry list of uses, thereby 
moving us forward in "what Pirsig means."

Ian said:
I like the "laundry list" idea. Anything too systematic or definitive 
would destroy it (the ineffable DQ), but archetypical examples would 
be useful.

Matt:
It might be worth saying that perhaps part of the reason for the 
queasy feeling people have towards too much systematicity of 
thought in interpreting Pirsig can be attributed to not making a 
distinction between Dynamic Quality and "Dynamic Quality."  

For example, if one makes that distinction, it makes no sense to say 
that one could destroy Dynamic Quality by systematizing Pirsig's use 
of "Dynamic Quality," because it immediately shows one how the 
thought cuts against the grain of what Pirsig intended--which was 
never the thought that _he_ was evacuating the full meaning of DQ.  
(This distinction between DQ and "DQ" may perhaps catch Joe's 
distinction between the "metaphysical description DQ/SQ" and what 
he took to my abandonment of it in favor of the "laundry list."  I 
hope this and what follows suggests why I do not take the issue of 
abandonment to even arise.)

You, Ian, didn't intend to say that, but I think you can see the slip 
between the two senses now between what I said and then you said.  
And I think this is a common slip for many, one too often (if, as I 
sincerely think, almost entirely unconsciously) used to cover against 
having to do the hard work of excavating in long chains of argument 
and close reading "what Pirsig means."  It's easier just to "groove 
on it," to use the hippie DQ-lingo.  

There is, indeed, nothing wrong with just grooving on Pirsig's text.  
But grooving does not an interpretation make, not in the sense that 
is linked directly to knowing, and showing that one knows, "what 
Pirsig means."  We don't all have to have that as our goal in life.  It 
is, centrally, a goal in life for that lebensform called "academia," but 
amateurs set their own agendas, and grooving is a perfectly 
responsible way of discharging that responsibility, though _not_ if 
one also claims to static-pattern-know "what Pirsig means."  As 
Marsha's supplied passage from the Oxford DVD suggests, we must 

distinguish between the cage of Pirsig's texts and the pastures of 

thought they open up.  However, if there is to be any truth to the 
idea 
that _Pirsig's cage_ does open up beautiful pastures, then we 
indeed 
need to understand what that cage entails and does not 
entail.  Otherwise, there's no sense in saying that these are beautiful 
pastures made possible to us _by Pirsig_.

I think the joy gained out of Pirsig's epithet "philosophology" almost 
always comes from a reverse-snobbery that is as bad as the 
snobbery of the academics that preceded it in one's personal history.  
In the last few years, I've tried to exemplify through my behavior 
how one can have "philosophological knowlege" without the 
snobbery (at least, that was the idea); can both laud and uphold the 
standards of academic behavior and procedures without 
illegitimately overstepping and claiming that amateur philosophy is 
bunk and its practitioners merely bad academics.  I think we in the 
MD should think more about what we each consider to be good 
amateur philosophy, because I think that one _does_ need to have a 
_separate_ sense of what that is alongside what professional 
philosophy is to make sure that one _isn't_ merely doing bad 
academics.  

So what I'm saying about DQ and "DQ" is that we should be fully able, 
as intellectuals, to supply a systematic representation of Pirsig's 
philosophy, and that this is in fact the necessary possibility 
presupposed by the use of the phrase "what Pirsig means."  If one 
wants to defend the idea that they know "what Pirsig means," then 
it is on the basis of having a sense of a consistent line of reasoning in 
Pirsig's texts and words.  This is a consistency that can be made 
explicit if one so chooses.  However, this systematic consistency that 
undergirds the possibility of him having a coherent, non-contradictory 
philosophy that "means something," does not in any way cut against 
any of his insights about DQ or irrationality or madness.  I think it is 
wrong to infer from the "ineffability of DQ," as Ian termed it, to the 
perniciousness of systematic thinking or scholarship and academia.

I would again repeat my "let a hundred flowers bloom" approach to 
amateur philosophy.  I would again emphasize how I do _not_ want 
to suggest that every member of the MD should have a responsibility 
to writing long prose on "what Pirsig means."  I would now make 
explicit how one _can_, I think, in fact get Pirsig right in "what Pirsig 
means" when one is just grooving on him.  However, if one can't 
also produce those long chains of reasoning, then while one might 
be right, one might also be wrong.  The conventional way of 
showing the difference between the two is through those long chains.  
This, however, does _not_ also mean that people who _can_ 
produce those long chains ipso facto win the title of "I'm right about 
what Pirsig means."  This would be tantamount to "I must be right 
since you might be wrong."  What they have done in producing the 
long chain, however, is lend a kind of plausibility to their claims that 
is lacking in the goover's claims.  And as a matter of 
static-pattern-knowing, the long-chain producers should eventually 
win because the idea is that good ideas eventually get good latching 
(and, on the flipside, the inability of good latching to appear should 
tell against it being a good idea).  I think long chains are an 
important part of philosophy, but I also think there are a lot of other 
important parts to philosophy.  What we shouldn't confuse is doing 
philosophy and figuring out "what Pirsig means."  In the MD, we 
often just bundle it all up together.  That's common practice in 
academia, too.  But we need to be able to distinguish between the 
different claims in our contributions and the different kinds of things 
that would tell against them.

Matt