[MD] Definitions.

[david buchanan]

"Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them." (Emphasis is Pirsig's. ZAMM, page 214.)

"A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics." (Pirsig in Lila, page 64.)


Marsha said:
Yes, but the above sentence does not state that Dynamic Quality is divisible, definable and knowable.  ...Can you explain what the higher, mystic form might be?



dmb says:
Dynamic Quality is the mystic reality, of course. Pirsig tells us that this is his meaning in clear and explicit terms. 

In fact, we see can see this by simply quoting a larger section of the the same passage.

"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." 

The trick is to realize that metaphysics and static intellectual quality is limited to those things that are definable. The MOQ puts this mystic reality at the very center but leaves it undefined. This is what I mean by the eyeball plucking analogy. Are we supposed to hate our eyes because they don't have infinite range? Does this mean we ought to be careless about describing the things we can see? By analogy, this is how it is with intellect. Concepts not going to do you any good with respect to the pre-conceptual empirical reality but that doesn't mean we should hate concepts or view language as a contemptible prison.