[MD] Thinkers and Rainers?

[david buchanan]

David Morey said:
If anyone wants to follow a genuinely open exploration of non-dualist thinking in a broader and better connected tradition I recommend Speculative Realism,  shame really,  the MOQ deserves better.


Arlo replied:
This is an interesting statement. What does "the MOQ deserves better" mean? Are you suggesting "Speculative Realism" as an alternative to Pirsig's MOQ? Or are you suggesting that elements of Speculative Realism can be used to enhance Pirsig's philosophy? And if the latter, why not a full replacement? Does Pirsig's MOQ offer something that Speculative Realism lacks? Are you suggesting a symbiotic joining to address insufficiencies in both?

dmb says:
Those are good questions too but I'd object (again) to the claim that Speculative Realism is part of a "broader and better connected tradition". According to Ray Brassier, who was at the conference where it was founded a few years ago, there is no such thing. It's just a bunch of bloggers engaged in an "online orgy of stupidity".

Wikipedia says, "Brassier defends a view of the world as inherently devoid of meaning. That is, rather than avoiding nihilism, Brassier embraces it as the truth of reality. Brassier concludes from his readings of Badiou and Laruelle that the universe is founded on the nothing,... 
In an interview with Kronos magazine published in March 2011, Ray Brassier denied that there is any such thing as a 'speculative realist movement' and firmly distanced himself from those who continue to attach themselves to the brand name: "The ‘speculative realist movement’ exists only in the imaginations of a group of bloggers promoting an agenda for which I have no sympathy whatsoever: actor-network theory spiced with pan-psychist metaphysics and morsels of process philosophy. I don’t believe the internet is an appropriate medium for serious philosophical debate; nor do I believe it is acceptable to try to concoct a philosophical movement online by using blogs to exploit the misguided enthusiasm of impressionable graduate students. I agree with Deleuze’s remark that ultimately the most basic task of philosophy is to impede stupidity, so I see little philosophical merit in a ‘movement’ whose most signal achievement thus far is to have generated an online orgy of stupidity."



Arlo said to Morey:
I think what people have been saying is that your views do not reveal "problems in the MOQ" because you are misunderstanding what Pirsig, James and Northrop have said. You refuse to accept this, and keep insisting that your problems are the result of faulty reasoning on the parts of Pirsig, James and Northrop. ...try as I might I can't find a clear articulation of what exactly you feel is deficient in Pirsig, and if / how Speculative Realism extends / replaces his ideas? What does Speculative Realism offer that Pirsig / James / Northrop do not?


dmb says:
Right. It's all pretty vague but the so-called problem seems to center around the idea that "undifferentiated experience" means experience that is devoid of empirical content, like white noise or something. It's a problem to have "unpatterned" experience, he thinks, and so he wants dynamic patterns to be the basis of static patterns or something. All the oxymoronic phrases (like preconceptual patterns) are generated by a basic misconception of the MOQ's DQ-sq distinction.