[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Dave,

Matt said:
This is where the phrasing of standards gets weird, because it's 
theoretically paramount for me to say that "what you want to say" 
doesn't _have_ standards implied, but _are_ implied standards.  
Weird, but also to my mind exactly parallel to the Pirsigian aphorism 
"we don't _have_ static patterns, we _are_ static patterns."  And to 
my mind, your second formulation is closer to what I'd prefer to say 
about amateur philosophy: "you build up a tailor-made set of 
standards as you go, alongside the actual empirical process."  The 
only minor difference is that I'd say that "building a tailor-made set 
of standards" _is_ "the actual empirical process."

DMB said:
I don't see how that aphorism is relevant here. Maybe that's a 
separate issue for another post but I think Pirsig is talking about 
something else entirely, namely the compound, complex, 
non-Cartesian nature of the self. In any case, let me just set that 
part of your comments aside.

Think about the relationship between "standards" and "the actual 
empirical process" in terms of the relationship between static 
quality and Dynamic Quality.

Matt:
Yeah, that's why I think the aphorism is relevant.  Because I want to 
deny that we should think about the relationship between the 
standards and the process on that analogy between static patterns 
and DQ.  I'm not sure yet how best to defend this on Pirsigian 
grounds, but I take it that by saying our non-Cartesian self _is_ 
static patterns, one is saying that you do not _have_ standards, but 
_are_ standards.  And if this is the case, what is "in process" other 
than those static patterns/standards (one's "self")?  Because if you 
_have_ the patterns, then you can make an easy distinction between 
the process and the standards (and thus begin with the process/DQ 
and end with standards/patterns).  But how one makes the 
distinction doesn't look clear to me if one subscribes to the 
aphorism.  (I'm not sure my slide back to "patterns" from your use 
of "static quality" makes a difference to this point.)

However, on the surface, subscription to the aphorism in this way 
seems to violate Pirsig's description of Dynamic Quality as the 
"primary empirical reality."  I have no readily available answer for 
why it might not do so.  Though on the other hand, I do not take it 
that subscription to this version of the aphorism entails the 
suggestion that one begins with "the standard texts" to produce 
quality.  However, I do take it (contra Pirsig) that one's subscription 
to his philosophy does _not_ entail either that the standard stuff of 
the past is "always secondary and subservient," as you put it, to the 
process of creation.  One begins, as an artist, wherever you as the 
artist thinks it is best to begin to produce quality: _nobody_ dictates 
to you--not cultural conservatives, nor Pirsig.  (In other words, I 
think Pirsig's practical suggestions to artist-philosophers do not 
follow directly from his own philosophy as he makes it out to.)  A 
way of putting this in line with the aphorism is to say that one does 
not _begin_ with the past (static patterns), one _is_ the past (static 
patterns), therefore still leaving up to you as to where one 
practically begins in the process of creation.  It is the case, as you 
put it, that one's tools serve one's art, but one starts with tools in 
one's hands.  If one didn't, I would think all that meant was that one 
hadn't decided what kind of art to produce.  (So, the painter begins 
with a paintbrush and canvas, because if the painter began with a 
chisel and block of stone, we'd probably say that the painter was 
actually a sculptor.  This doesn't entail, either, that new art 
forms/activities can't be produced by geniuses beginning as painters 
and ending by creating the activity of sculpture.  It just means that 
they started somewhere before ending up someplace hopefully new 
and better.)

Matt