[MD] Julian Baggini: This is what the clash of civilisations is really about

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 12:22 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good Morning, Dan.

Evening, John.

>
> On 8/9/15, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> Jc:  Meaning is found in experience rather than abstractions from
>>> experience.  The MoQ is an abstraction from experience and should not be
>>> confused with the Quality it talks about.
>>
>> Dan:
>> It appears to me that your first sentence contradicts the second. In
>> Lila, Robert Pirsig writes that the metaphysics of quality could just
>> as well be called the metaphysics of meaning. Meaning is found in
>> abstraction, after experience.
>>
>
> Jc:  I was trying to think about it phenomenologically - all our
> meanings should be grounded in concrete phenomenon, no?  Even when
> they take off on flights of fancy, that connection is there.  Meaning
> is abstraction!  I agree.  And likewise abstractions must be  in
> experience.  Grounding your meanings in abstractions, is like building
> castles in the air.  There's nothing underneath to support any of it.
> It used to be assumed that abstractions were grounded in objective
> reality, but certain philosophers of old showed that to be a bankrupt
> notion, and that was classical pragmatism, neh?  My thesis is that the
> MoQ has built upon that same premise, albeit a different structure,
> there is synonomous grounding.
>
> And Pirsig's quote that you could just as well call the Metaphysics of
> Quality, the Metaphysics of Meaning is EXACTLY what I'm saying...

Dan:
:-)

>>>JC:
>>> The fact that there are individuals with different experiences, who find
>>> the MoQ meaningful to them, should be praised and celebrated rather than
>>> frowned-upon and quashed.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I'm not frowning. Just making a point. See? :-) No frown here!
>
> Jc:  You've been a good friend to me, Dan.  I've always appreciated
> your wit and honesty, ever since we argued with Ron over
> bear-killings.

Thanks, John. Likewise.

>
>
>
>>
>> Dan:
>> Sure. As I've been saying, we need to focus our attention on what
>> Robert Pirsig is saying, not on what we think he is saying.
>
> Jc:  Well, no.  Well, perhaps.  We need to focus our individual
> attention on the meaning of Pirsig's work and words and that takes the
> form of assimilating his concepts into the rest of our life and
> thought.

Dan:
Hmmm. I think I disagree with this. While focusing attention on the
MOQ is a good thing, so far as figuring out its intricacies, to take
it as a template for one's own life seems a bit much. Rather, I would
advise a person to seek their own level in life regardless of what
anyone else says, and that includes Robert Pirsig.

JC:
> That work of integration is important and individual, while
> what we write about, and reinforce socially, is something else.  I
> think our focus should be upon the underlying meanings of "what we
> hold in common".  That is, the work of understanding each other's
> "light" and appreciation of Pirsig's work.

Dan:
We all start out with preconceived notions of the world and our place
within it. That's pretty much a given. However our personal histories
have unfolded leave us at a particular point uniquely ours. Even
though we may form agreements with others, it's still impossible to
put ourselves in their place and say, sure, I know exactly what you
mean. Because we never will.

At the same time, however, we have the advantage with the MOQ of
having Robert Pirsig's novel backing up his ideas. Maybe that's the
great thing about writing... it is a way of sharing what is uniquely
us with the world at large. Even then, people are apt to take what we
say not as we mean it but as what they think we mean.

Hemingway comes to mind. His book The Old Man and the Sea is taught in
school as man's struggle against inhuman forces impinging upon his
reality while he himself said its just a story about a man having a
bad day fishing.

JC:
> I think there's been far
> too much analytic ripping-apart and far too little integrative work,
> on this list.  For me, part of the integrative work, is digging down
> to the roots of thought, specifically American philosophical
> assumptions and background.  I like the idea as Wilshire puts is,
> "Primal is Primary" and starting there.  Very few philosophers in the
> modern pantheon have explicitly done that - Pirsig is just about alone
> on that peak.
>
> But any idea does need sharp criticism and poking and analytic
> thought.  So I can see how we slip into that so easily.  It's pretty
> much the only process there is, for intellectual patterns.

Dan:
I like to think a well-developed argument is more than simply poking
and prodding ideas to see what happens. In the end, the two sides
should hopefully move toward each other though many times one side
must be willing to make that first step.

>
>
>>> Jc:  Well, all that might come true, and the world will be speaking
>>> Chinese, the way things are going...
>>
>> Dan:
>> And is there something inherently wrong with that?
>
>
> Jc:  No, but it'd be different than what we expect in the present!  I
> really don't think we can think about the future in a concrete way.
> Probably the best thing would be to think of the future we'd like to
> live, and think about that.

Dan:
I pretty much focus on the now these days. The future? Eh. It might or
might not unfold the way I'd like. The past? Eh. Same thing. It's
continually changing in regards to now.

>
>
> Jc snip to:
>
>
>
>>>... Seeing this weaving, it's a beautiful thing.  I can't un-see it, just because you say it doesn't fit.  Show me how, it doesn't fit.
>>
>
>> Dan:
>> That would take way more effort than I'm willing to commit. I tend to
>> believe lots of people lump the work of Robert Pirsig into many other
>> philosophers in order to say: there... I've got it. This is what he
>> means... just the same as Emerson, Dewey, James, Whitehead, and on and
>> on. To me, that is a grave mistake. But then again, that's just my
>> opinion.
>
> Jc:  Of course it's just your opinion, as mine is as well.  Why is it
> a grave mistake?  Pirsig himself did it!  When reading the Tao, when
> reading James, he came upon the maps of other great thinkers and
> rejoiced to find niches of congruence.  Why is that a bad thing?  Do
> you think Pirsig would get lost in a crowd?  Man, it's just the
> opposite.  The crowd is noticed, the man is ignored.  Ideas need
> crowds.

Dan:
I don't know about that. If an idea is good, it'll shine of its own
accord whether or not the crowd gets it. I read somewhere that it took
fifteen years for the scientific community to realize Einstein had
come up with a revolutionary new idea. All that time, he spent working
as a patent clerk... a quiet occupation that allowed him time to work
on his ideas basically in isolation. From what I understand, Robert
Pirsig was pretty much a loner too during his work on both ZMM and
Lila. It wasn't that their ideas needed crowds so much as it was they
attracted crowds when noticed.

>
>
>
>
>> Dan:
>> I guess I'm not all that bright. It's taken me the better part of two
>> decades of work to get a grasp on the MOQ and even now I'm pretty sure
>> there are nuances that I'm missing. That doesn't mean I'll never get
>> it... just that I have to keep on keeping on.
>
> Jc:  I don't think it matters how bright you are.  I'm not a genius.
> Philosophy just grabbed me at a young age and I always kept going, in
> a semi-dillitanteish way, and was never overly-distracted by the
> pursuit of material gain. :)  I think there was a lot of coinciding on
> my path, where Pirsig tied a lot of ends together and then this list
> has been a boon, kicking my thoughts toward this book or that.  It's
> been a blast, really.
>
> And to tell you the truth Dan, I wonder if a religious upbringing
> isn't a bit conducive to the consideration of abstract problems.  One
> reason I started at a young age, was the religious background makes
> you think about stuff that is "other-worldly" in a way that encourages
> those of philosophic tempermant.  Pirsig certainly was raised in such
> an environment, I'm sure.  Everybody was back in those days.
>
> These days kids are raised with no weighty problems to solve.  it's
> "anything goes" and the only problems are those of the erotic self.
> This development bodes ill for the ideal future I am trying to
> envision.
>
> At the same time, any sort of mass religious conversion is going to be
> nothing but hell on earth.  All that pent-up angst and denied rage
> suddenly channeled through manipulation of mass-mind.  Shivers..   So
> it's a quandry, it certainly is.

Dan:
I've never had any particular religious leanings. One of my earliest
memories of anything of a religious nature was my older sister telling
me how a priest had to marry a man and a woman before they could have
a baby. I must've been four or five years old and she twelve years
older. I remember thinking even then how if that was actually so, then
it was definitive proof of the power of god. Of course when I got a
bit older I realized the fallacy of her teachings.

It is my opinion that most people of religious persuasion are
indoctrinated much the same way as my sister attempted with me. Of
course that indoctrination is quite a bit more nuanced than hers, more
grounded in centuries of social patterns that have taken deep root and
grown formidable. But the same principle applies.

These kids today. How often do you hear that refrain. Honestly,
though, I look at most of them and I see myself forty, fifty years
ago. Sure, the technology has changed, but the undercurrent of
morality is still there. Do they express themselves differently than I
did? Sure, just as I expressed myself differently than my father. But
isn't that to be expected? All in all, these kids are still more good
than bad. They still face the same problems I faced. Maybe their way
of dealing with them has changed but I'm not entirely sure if that's
right either.

>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>>JC:
>>> The issue is this:  The meaning of any system is constrained to the
>>> context
>>> which surrounds it.  For instance, "christianity" has a completely
>>> different meaning if you're in a college classroom, than it does if
>>> you're
>>> in a muslim village.   Because the cultural expectations and definitions
>>> differ so broadly, from person to person (especially in this digitally
>>> fragmented age) that misunderstandings and misinterpretations occur,
>>> which
>>> are then construed as "mistakes".
>>
>> Dan:
>> Yes but we are in a forum devoted to the work of Robert Pirsig,
>> specifically Lila. The way I see it, if someone wishes to expand that
>> to include other authors like William James, Josiah Royce, etc., it is
>> up to them to to full elucidate those connections. It isn't my
>> intention to deny those relationships so much as it is to illuminate
>> what the MOQ states, plain and simple. As you say, we have a wealth of
>> information on hand to back up those claims, to throw water on the
>> commonly held mistakes that continually crop up here year after year,
>> but most people caught up in that misinterpretation refuse to
>> acknowledge they are mistaken. Instead, they keep on spouting the same
>> inane remarks over and over until people get pissed off about it.
>>
>
> Jc:  hmmm.  It sounds like you've got quite a quandry too.  The only
> true orthodoxy is silence.  Neti-neti anyone?
>
> Your advice sorta contradicts itself.  On the one hand, you challenge
> me to elucidate my connections, which I have been trying to do, and on
> the other imply I should keep quiet!

Dan:
Not at all. Take the commonly held notion cropping up here quite often
that social patterns correspond to groups of people. It seems that
I've been over that particular misconception at least a thousand times
and yet so far as I can remember there's never that 'ah ha!' moment
when someone says, oh! So that's what Pirsig means! I've had it wrong
all these years. Instead, people fight to maintain their own version
of what social patterns mean even if it contradicts what Robert Pirsig
has specifically stated. Sort of like Bodvar Skutvik and his notion
that intellectual patterns in the MOQ correlate to subject/object
metaphysics and no matter who tried or how many times it was explained
to him, he simply refused to get it.

So yeah, after a while, I get to thinking: what's the use? Why even
bother responding to these posts? Now, you can say that I'm
contradicting myself... that I'm both telling people to shut the hell
up while simultaneously requesting they make an honest effort at
coming to grips with the MOQ before they begin offering changes meant
to make it better, and maybe you're right. In a way, that's exactly
what I'm doing. But I think if you dig a little deeper, you'll begin
to see there is no contradiction at all.

>JC:
> Well, no, that's not right.  You're just recounting the history that
> this group carries with it and I get your point.
>
> I'd like to hear your response to  Pirsig's willingness to find
> congruence in other writers,  and consider the question if it's a
> valid enterprise then, to explore more of what he found exactly in
> James, that he considered so good.

Dan:
"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 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?"

[Robert Pirsig, A Brief Summary of the Metaphysics of Quality,
http://robertpirsig.org/Intro.html]

Dan comments:
This is what I'm getting at... none of us are living in a vacuum and
yes it's enticing to search for congruence between the MOQ and the
work of other philosophers, but at the same time we shouldn't allow
that to overshadow the intricacies of the MOQ. If Robert Pirsig is
saying the same thing as James and Royce and a hundred other thinkers,
then what part of the MOQ is actually original? Any of it? And if all
Pirsig's thoughts are simply a regurgitation of old ideas, why are we
bothering with it at all? Why not simply read James and Royce and be
done with it?

On the other hand, if the MOQ does offer something original, why
attempt to cover it up by bringing in other philosophers and saying:
There! He's saying exactly what James is saying! Sure, Pirsig is
simply mimicking Royce and his Absolute.

I happen to believe the MOQ does offer something new. Does it expand
on previously held ideas? Of course it does. But to say those ideas
correspond to and are congruent with the MOQ is to do not only Robert
Pirsig a disservice, but yourself. By hiding one's head in the sands
of yesterday, the light of today will never reach you.

>JC:
> thanks for the convo, Dan.

You're welcome, John. Thank you too.

Dan

http://www.danglover.com