[MD] theories of truth

[david buchanan]

dmb said:

The contradiction is both clear and epic.  Where Pirsig says, "the world is primarily a moral order" and "value is the fundamental ground-stuff of the world,"  DJH says, "All things are mystically degenerate".


There is a very nice moment in the AHP transcript wherein we can almost witness Pirsig realizing or appreciating an aspect of his own work that he'd never noticed before. It's slightly thrilling. Filled me with gumption. Check it out.  



"I certainly don't have much social gumption and I don't have much physical gumption. I have a hard time doing exercises which I must do, but I'm working on a boat right now. So these… various gumptions vary quite a bit. I have friends who are athletes who just… you know they can hardly wait to get out and work out on a trapeze. Now how can you live that way you know? And, at the same time they must wonder what is he doing sitting there writing on a book all day? They'd go crazy if they had to do that.
So… this gumption is a kind of a Quality thing. It's a response, I think as I defined it in ZMM, it's a response to Dynamic Quality. You get filled with "theos", enthusiasm, which is gumption… the same thing… I guess, again, it's different for each person. It's different for each person and each of the [static] levels has its own kind of gumption. I hadn't thought of that before."


Each of the static levels has its own kind of gumption!  Got gumption? What kind? It matters, of course, because these are the same levels that define the MOQ's moral codes. This helps to further defeat anti-intellectualism, no?