[MD] Zen and theArt of Religion

[david]

John McConnell said:

...I find I have learned from him and benefited from his insights.  What he and I share is that we both have "skin in the game".  Philosophy in general, and Pirsig's philosophy in particular, are vitally important to John and me.  It's of pivotal significance to our personal trips.  For us, it's not about winning points in a scholarly debate; it's about wrestling with real issues of living, and finding better ways of living and thinking that will help us and other people to live with greater purpose and greater happiness.  We're what DiSanto and Steele (Guidebook to ZMM) refer to as "journey" philosophers instead of "map" philosophers.


dmb says:

I see some major problems with this. First of all, you've set up a false dichotomy so that a person either has "skin in the game" or a person cares about scholarly standards. But there is no good reason to think that these two things are mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite, in fact, because there is no way to apply Pirsig's work to your personal life without first understanding what his work means. It's like saying that you don't care about learning how to drive  because you're only interested in the actual road trip. But what's going to happen on that journey if you can't drive? You'll surely crash and burn. 

Ron DiSanto was a member of my thesis committee, by the way, so it's funny that you should mention him in this context. And my thesis compared Pirsig, James and Buddha. Accusations that I don't have skin in the game or that I've excluded religion from the picture are very far from true. Frankly, I think it would be fair to characterize such baseless accusations as nothing but self-serving bullshit.