[MD] Really? Is that all there is?

[david buchanan]

Marsha quoted Pirsig:
"I also have a concern of my own. This is the concern that philosophers, instead of coming to grips with the philosophy at hand, sometimes dismiss it by saying, “Oh he is saying the same as someone else,” or “someone else has said it much better.” This is the latter half of the well known conservative argument that some new idea is (a) no good because it hasn't been heard it before or (b) it is no good because it has been heard before. If, as has been noted by R.C. Zaehner, once the Oxford University Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, I am saying the same thing as Aristotle; and if, as has been noted in the Harvard Educational Review, I am saying the same thing as William James; and if as has been noted now that I may be saying the same thing as Spinoza: then why has no one ever noticed that Aristotle and Spinoza and William James are all saying the same thing?"  (RMP, 'A brief summary of the Metaphysics of Quality, October 2005). 

dmb says:
That would be a fine warning if I were using James to "dismiss" the MOQ. It would be a good counter example if I were using James to say the MOQ is "no good". As far I can see, nobody has ever tried to do that. And I'm certainly not doing any such thing. Marsha's suggestion that I am has no basis at all; it's just another straw man made of nothing but hostile dishonesty. In Lila, Pirsig tells us this same story about the three reviewers, one comparing his work to Aristotle, one to Hegel and one saying James's were comparable. Leaving this part of the story out is a pretty serious distortion. In fact, it's downright misleading to tell only half of this story. 

"If everyone was right he had certainly achieved a remarkable synthesis. But the comparison with James interested him most because it looked like there might be something to it.   It was also very good philosophological news. James is usually considered a very solid mainstream American philosopher, whereas Phaedrus' first book had ofter been described as a 'cult' book. He had the feeling the people who used that term WISHED it was a cult book and would go away like a cult book, perhaps because it was interfering with some philosophological cultism of their own. But if philosophologists were willing to accept the idea that the MOQ is an offshoot of James' work, then that 'cult' charge was shattered. And this was good political news in a field where politics is a big factor." (Lila 324)

And about 40 pages later he tells us that his investigation into James seemed to justify the reviewers claim.

"...But to Phaedrus it seemed that James's generalizations were heading toward something very similar to the Metaphysics of Quality. This could, of course, be the 'Cleveland Harbor Effect', where Phaedrus' own intellectual immune system was selecting those aspects of James' philosophy that fit the MOQ and ignoring those that didn't. But he didn't think so. Everywhere he read it seemed as though he was seeing fits and matches that no amount of selective reading could contrive." (Lila 363)


Marsha said to dmb:
...You like the James-Pirsig connection, good for you, but others may not care.  I don't,..


dmb says:
As the textual evidence from Lila shows, Pirsig also likes the James-Pirsig connection. Marsha's much-repeated declaration of apathy toward James is, in effect, a much-repeated dismissal of Pirsig's text. What's even worse, the James quotes employed by Pirsig are used to explain and illuminate the basics of the MOQ, which is exactly where Marsha is getting it wrong. She needs help from James on these particular issues. If she understood what James and Pirsig are saying about the static and the dynamic, she wouldn't be using contradictory phrases like "ever-changing static patterns". If she understood what James and Pirsig are saying about subjects and objects, she would not equate the intellectual level with SOM and if she understood what they were saying about pure experience and the immediate flux of life, etc., etc.. 

Marsha fabricated many straw men with which to do battle. One of these fake Daves doesn't want the MOQ to be compared to Buddhism, (even though James has many fans among the Buddhists), one doesn't get it because he's unfamiliar with process philosophy (even thought James is considered to be a process philosopher by other process philosophers like Whitehead, another Dave wants to limit the MOQ by jamming into some other philosophic tradition, one denies that Pirsig ever said anything original, and all of them have a hidden and sinister agenda, etc.. I'll just roll my eyes a dozen times and skip to the last one. 



dmb said:
How much selective reading would it take to ignore this and construe James's thought as irrelevant or at odds with Pirsig's text? It IS Pirsig's text. How could the similarities between James and Pirsig be any clearer or more straightforward? Is there any reasonable way to disregard or dismiss this evidence? I don't see how. Evade and insult, evade and insult. That's been Marsha's style for a long time now and that's totally bogus, illegitimate and very, very dishonest. Even her insults are predicated on lies. It's disgusting.


Marsha replied:
William James was an interesting guy, but from my perspective, only from a historical point-of-view. If serving up radical empiricism on a bed of theoretical pages is what you crave and fetishizing a dead philosopher satisfies your need for ancestor-worship, by all means, stick to your philosophologizing. If to read what Hildebrand, Granger, Stuhr, Hickman, Anderson, Richardson and 'Charlene' think about what James thought gets you high on life instead of experience, go for it. But don't suggest that you are looking out for purity of RMP's distinctions, definitions and ideas, because in saying so you are just shoveling more Blarney.


dmb says:
See how that works? An avalanche of textual evidence from a wide range of scholars, according to Marsha, is just "shoveling more blarney". It's just a personal perversion of mine, not Pirsig himself saying, "the comparison with James interested him most because it looked like there might be something to it". And it's just satisfies my kinky needs and it doesn't matter that Pirsig himself says, "James's generalizations were heading toward something very similar to the Metaphysics of Quality" and "Everywhere he read it seemed as though he was seeing fits and matches that no amount of selective reading could contrive." This is the kind of bullshit response I'm talking about when I say Marsha style is to evade the evidence and insult the messenger. Evade and insult, evade and insult. It's so old, so dishonest and just plain dumb. Anyone who consistently ignores the evidence, ignores the explanations, or builds straw man to debate rather than engage in a grown up conversation - especially when it's presented as a way to correct long standing errors - is simply not competent to play this game. That is not what reasonable people do. Anyone with average intelligence should be embarrassed to do stuff like that.

"...James had condensed this description [of radical empiricism] to a single sentence. 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing.' Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality." (p. 365)

"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth century American philosophy. It is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the test of the true is the good." (p. 366)