[MD] Plato's Good

[david buchanan]

dmb asked John to be specific:
Who "around here" has ever tried to make a fixed idea out of Pirsig's undefined Quality?

John replied:
Ummm, everyone?  Since a metaphysics is a system of philosophical definitions, it's in the very name you bandy about -  "MoQ".  Could just as easily be called "DoQ". ...

dmb says:
Oh, I see. You're confusing or conflating undefined Quality with the Metaphysics of Quality. 

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called "Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.     Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a "Metaphysics of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity." (Pirsig, Lila)

dmb says:

This passage says quite a lot about the distinction between DQ and sq, between direct experience and intellectual abstractions. Please noticed that DQ remains undefined within and yet the MOQ's distinctions, concepts, definitions, ideas, etc. all arranged around that mystic focal point. About the focal point itself, we don't say much except in terms of what DQ ain't. It ain't static and it ain't intellectual but that's exactly what metaphysics must be. This is not some wild-eyed notion. When Pirsig says, "metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics" he is only stating the obvious and of course his own metaphysics must be all of those things as well. By confusing or conflating DQ with the MOQ, you've come to the absurd conclusion that definable, knowable concepts are outside of thought and language, that words can't be defined and ideas have no particular meaning. The MOQ is given to us in two published books and it's filled to the brim with thoughts and ideas and words with particular meanings and definitions. The mystic reality (DQ or direct experience) it talks about is not given to us in any book. 

WE ARE HERE TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS AND IDEAS. So what? If you think that words and concepts and definitions are a problem when discussing metaphysics, then I think it's safe to say that you're confused. Asking for the proper use of words and ideas is not some kind of dictatorial oppression. It's just that communication can't happen without such BASIC requirements like that. It just won't work. 

"A metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics."

"A metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable,.."

"A metaphysics must be definable and knowable."

"Metaphysics must be definable, or there isn't any metaphysics."

"A metaphysics must be definable."

"The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called "Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined."

See?