[MD] Words and Metaphysical Mysticism.

[david buchanan]

Horse said to David Harding:

OK - that makes sense. I was getting worried for a while there! The general idea is that in ZMM, where Pirsig is first developing his ideas about Quality, there is no differentiation between what would later become the DQ/SQ split of Quality. Once Pirsig started to develop the MoQ as a metaphysics, what he had referred to as Quality in ZMM became DQ (undefined) and SQ (definable). ...
To be precise: Quality(ZMM) = DQ(Lila)   Quality(Lila) = DQ(Lila) + SQ(Lila) Yep! Makes sense now.


"When ZMM was written there was no division between Dynamic Quality and static quality and the term Quality then meant what is now meant by Dynamic Quality.  Today I tend to think of Quality as covering both Dynamic and static quality.  So far no problems have arisen with this confusion of terms but if they do arise I would guess that they could be eliminated by refraining from using the term Quality alone." [Pirsig to Turner, November 2005]

dmb says:
The slight shift in terms is largely a result of adding static quality. How does Pirsig put it? You can't have a metaphysics that consists of just one undefined word. That's where he leaves it at the end of ZAMM and a one-word metaphysics just doesn't cut it. Adding static quality, which is largely what Lila is all about, and distinguishing it from Dynamic Quality allows his to keep the original undefined mystic reality (ZAMM'a Quality) while also building a philosophy full of defined terms. The MOQ is a metaphysics that consists of way more than one word. 

In ZAMM Pirisg talks about Quality as the generator of mythos, as continuing stimulus that caused us to create one analogy upon another and these analogies constitute the whole world of our understanding. In Lila Pirsig says everything we understand about the world, or everything that's in the encyclopedia is static quality. And he tells us that all static quality is derived from Dynamic Quality. The terms and imagery change from book to book, but those are just two way to express the same idea. We can see the relationship between DQ and sq even in ZAMM, although he doesn't use those particular terms - except once or maybe twice. 

In ZAMM Pirsig talks about effecting a root expansion of rationality through the integration of Quality into our ways of thinking and speaking.  If Quality is understood as the generator of science, art and religion, he thought, then Quality could be used to improve and integrate those domains. This is how we replace attitudes of objectivity with the art of rationality. In Lila Pirsig replaces the correspondence theory of truth (Wherein truth is achieved when the subject's idea corresponds to objective reality) with plural, provisional, pragmatic truths. He quite fittingly uses an art gallery analogy to make this point, wherein truths are artistic creations rather than scientific discoveries. Again, the terms and imagery shifts from book to book but the concepts are consistent throughout both works. These works only illuminate each other.