[MD] "RMP: Ignoramous or fraud?

[John Carl]

So, David,  In answer to Auxier's assertions, you'd counter that certainly
Pirsig heard of Whitehead when he was at Chicago.  And if I may be so bold
as to continue this line of argument, what he heard of Whitehead
 encouraged him to continue along his own line of thinking, and not branch
off into being an acolyte of Whitehead.  That is, sometimes an intellectual
pattern gains social status by being original.  That passage I quoted from
Lila says exactly that.    And while Pirsig ended up very close to
Whitehead, he started up a completely different path.  Sure, they met at
the peak.  Dwellers of the high country often do, but this is no reason to
disparage Pirsig.

Saying that he got to the same place as Whitehead, but ignoring the value
of his doing it independently, is like the biggest reification of all
time.  It's celebrity worship, is all.  Whitehead is academically
accepted.  Pirsig is not.  Therefore we choose Whitehead as our masthead?
The idea is the thing, right?

  Truth is the thing, or should be the thing.    When an academic
 philosopher or  metaphysician is wrong, it's bothersome in a deeply
troubling way.    I believe Auxier is wrong about Pirsig but I don't have
enough social status to argue with him.

He doesn't understand Pirsig.  He can't pass judgement on Pirsig.  I don't
know Pirsig either!   I know Auxier better than I know anybody, simply
because we've traveled together, talked together, eaten together and he's
slept under my roof.  Pirsig I only know from what I read.  But I think I'm
 smarter than Auxier because  I know I don't know.  He thinks he always
knows.  So its a tough nut to crack, that Academic Superiority Authority
Complex.

.. maybe it's some sort of goad or baiting tactic.  I need to nail him down
on what he means by rejecting Pirsig cuz he's too close to Whitehead.  Why
is that a reason to reject a philosopher?  "He's too close, metaphysically
speaking, to my hero, Whitehead"  So?  Look at him as a populizer of
Whitehead.  Randy edited a very fine book I'm reading on The Wizard of OZ.
A movie can lead us down the yellow brick road of enlightenment but a book
can't?  I don't get it.

..   He said at the  time I met him that he taught ZAMM in his undergrad
classes.  I don't get it.  Why does recognizing Whitehead in him,  make
Pirsig a bad philosopher?    From a Whiteheadian! No less!

Well...

I'll say this, it's given us an outside enemy in common.  Maybe we can bond
now.  lol.

John

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 11:08 AM, david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> There's pretty good evidence that Pirsig has heard of Whitehead, although
> the center of the Whitehead universe had shifted from Chicago to Claremont,
> a theology school in California, by 1958.
>
> ''It certainly felt right. Not subject and object but static and Dynamic
> is the basic division of reality. When A.N. Whitehead wrote that 'mankind
> is driven forward by dim apprehensions of things too obscure for language,'
> he was writing about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the
> pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things,
> completely simple and always new. It was the moral force that had motivated
> the brujo in Zuni. It contains no pattern of fixed rewards and punishments.
> Its only perceived evil is static quality itself - any pattern of one-sided
> fixed values that tries to contain and kill the ongoing free force of
> life." Pirsig, chapter 9 of Lila.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Moq_Discuss <moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org> on behalf of
> John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, November 4, 2016 11:17 AM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] "RMP: Ignoramous or fraud?
>
> PS:  If there is some antipathy toward Pirsig on Auxier's part, you can
> certainly see why in that passage I quoted from Lila!  It just about NAILs
> the academic know-it-all attitude to the wall, which admittedly, Auxier
> generates from his pores.  But I still like the guy a lot and appreciate
> y'all's help in reconciling two men whom I appreciate.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 10:14 AM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Adrie,
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 10:49 AM, Adrie Kintziger <parser666 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > But this aside, and adopting the term for metaforical purposes ,Pirsig
> >> is a beachcomber in the intellectual landscape ,beachcombing the giant,
> >> and the world in wich we live, to show wat was laid bare by the storm so
> >> to
> >> speak.
> >>
> >
> >
> > So you agree with Auxier that Pirsig derived his MoQ entirely from
> > Whitehead?  To tell you the truth, I don't mind at all, it's just a shock
> > to find out after all these years.
> >
> > Here is our conversation (mine and Auxier's) up to date.
> >
> > ----------- my email to Auxier:
> >
> > Randy,
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Randall Auxier <personalist61 at gmail.com
> >
> >  wrote:
> >
> >> Zero. Chicago wasn't analytical at that time, and McKeon despised
> >> analytical philosophy. That day and age at U Chicago was 100% process
> >> philosophy, both in the Phil. dept and in every committee, including the
> >> Divinity School. The list of process-professors is endless. Zero.
> >>
> >> RA
> >>
> >
> >
> > There are some pertinent biographical facts you're ignoring, Randy.
> > You're thinking "he'd have to be crazy to be in Chicago and not have
> heard
> > of Whitehead"  What you're forgetting is that he was crazy, and got so
> > crazy he had to be locked up and given electroshock therapy where he had
> to
> > reconstruct his earlier work by looking at notes he'd kept.    His story
> > isn't  made up although his story isn't so much a biography as it is a
> > novel - it's a novel about a man trying to reconstruct himself, which is
> > hard to wrap your mind around (is this first person or third?)   Paranoid
> > schizophrenics can't be judged on the basis of what a normal person or
> > student would do.  Pirsig passed over American Theistic philosophers (or
> > inasmuch as he'd heard) like Whitehead and James.  His goal was blending
> > eastern philosophy with western, as the title of his best selling book
> > illustrates.   THAT was the direction at which the old zen archer aimed
> his
> > intellect.
> >
> > But whatever he was aiming at,  he completely forgot in the aftermath of
> > electro-convulsive therapy.
> >
> > I offer a few pertinent comments from Pirsig, to illustrate my point that
> > he wasn't much of a philosophy student.
> >
> > Taken from  Robert Pirsig's commentary on Frederick Copleston's 'History
> > of Philosophy', in a personal note to Anthony McWatt, who has a Ph.D in
> the
> > MoQ, from Oxford (although ant isn't much of a philosophologist either -
> he
> > was an art major)
> >
> > January 2000
> >
> > *Dear Anthony McWatt,*
> >
> > *You asked in one of your letters how the MOQ compares with late 19th
> > Century idealism. The answer that follows copies part of Frederick
> > Copleston’s summary of that group in Volume 8 of his “History of
> > Philosophy” and inserts comparisons the MOQ. As I’ve said before,
> > philosophology isn’t my field, and I assume that Copleston’s
> understanding
> > of the positions of the various idealists is correct. Certainly it’s
> better
> > than mine, and using it and trusting it filters out a lot of red
> herring.*
> >
> > Ok, right there.  The only thing he knows about British Idealism is what
> > he reads by another man.  How could this happen? Furthermore, he
> expresses
> > absolute surprise at what Coppleston describes of Bradley,  but then, how
> > many philosophers read Bradley?  So understandable to an extent.  But in
> > Lila he discovers William James(!)  Like, for the first time?  Sort of.
> > LIke with his blinders taken off by his own intellectual evolution.
> Which
> > makes it more interesting to me.
> >
> > he explains his overall attitude in Lila, describing  a boat trip, via
> the
> > old Eerie Lackawanna canal system to the Hudson and New York City:
> >
> > "One of the disadvantages of this boat life is you don't get to use
> public
> > libraries.
> > But he had found a bookstore with an old two-volume biography of William
> > James that should hold him for a while. Nothing like some good old
> > "philosophology" to put someone to sleep. He took the top volume out of
> the
> > canvas bag, climbed into the sleeping bag and looked at the book's cover
> > for a while.
> >
> > -26-
> >
> > He liked that word "philosophology." It was just right. It had a nice
> > dull, cumbersome, superfluous appearance that exactly fitted its subject
> > matter, and he'd been using it for some time now.
> >
> > Philosophology is to philosophy as musicology is to music, or as art
> > history and art
> > appreciation are to art, or as literary criticism is to creative writing.
> > It's a derivative, secondary field, a sometimes parasitic growth that
> likes
> > to think it controls its host by analyzing and intellectualizing its
> > host's behavior.
> >
> > Literature people are sometimes puzzled by the hatred many creative
> > writers have for them. Art historians can't understand the venom either.
> He
> > supposed the same was true with musicologists but he didn't know enough
> > about them. But philosophologists don't have this problem at all because
> > the philosophers who would normally condemn them are a null-class. They
> > don't exist. Philosophologists, calling themselves philosophers, are just
> > about all there are.
> >
> > You can imagine the ridiculousness of an art historian taking his
> students
> > to museums, having them write a thesis on some historical or technical
> > aspect of what they see there, and after a few years of this giving them
> > degrees that say they are accomplished artists. They've never held a
> brush
> > or a mallet and chisel in their hands. All they know is art history.
> > Yet, ridiculous as it sounds, this is exactly what happens in the
> > philosophology that calls itself philosophy. Students aren't expected to
> > philosophize. Their instructors would hardly know what to say if they
> did.
> > They'd probably compare the student's writing to Mill or Kant or somebody
> > like that, find the student's work grossly inferior, and tell him to
> > abandon it.
> >
> > As a student Phædrus had been warned that he would "come a cropper" if he
> > got too attached to any philosophical ideas of his own. Literature,
> > musicology, art history and philosophology thrive in academic
> institutions
> > because they are easy to teach. You just Xerox something some philosopher
> > has said and make the students discuss it, make them memorize it, and
> then
> > flunk them at the end of the quarter if they forget it.
> >
> > Actual painting, music composition and creative writing are almost
> > impossible to teach and so they barely get in the academic door.  True
> > philosophy doesn't get in at all. Philosophologists often have an
> interest
> > in creating philosophy but, as philosophologists, they subordinate it,
> much
> > as a literary scholar might subordinate his own interest in creative
> > writing. Unless they are exceptional they don't consider the creation of
> > philosophy their real line of work.
> > As an author, Phædrus had been putting off the philosophology, partly
> > because he didn't like it, and partly to avoid putting a
> philosophological
> > cart before the philosophical horse. Philosophologists not only start by
> > putting the cart first; they usually forget the horse entirely. They say
> > first you should read what all the great philosophers of history have
> said
> > and then you should decide what you want to say.
> >
> > The catch here is that by the time you've read what all the great
> > philosophers of history have said you'll be at least two hundred years
> old.
> > A second catch is that these great philosophers are very persuasive
> people
> > and if you read them innocently you may be carried away by what they say
> > and never see what they missed."
> >
> > Lila - page 26
> >
> >
> > jc:
> >
> > So Professor, are you still sure there is a ZERO chance that Pirsig
> didn't
> > understand or read Whitehead?  If he did, then he's perpetrating one of
> the
> > most elaborate frauds I've ever known.
> >
> > I don't know if this subject greatly interests you, but it sure does me.
> >
> > --------Auxier's reply:
> >
> > Zero. You don't understand what actually happens in graduate seminars in
> > philosophy, such as McKeon's. I have spent a lifetime both doing this and
> > listening to it. You don't understand how students talk on their way into
> > and out of class, or what they discuss on the days between. The entire
> > heady scene of graduate school, which Pirsig describes quite nicely in
> Zen,
> > includes all kinds of things that won't show up in books and letters. I
> > assure you, he knew and heard about and probably read Whitehead while at
> > Chicago. If his memory was wiped out, that is hardly evidence against
> what
> > I'm saying. It helps my case. He relieved these ideas from the recesses
> of
> > a damaged cerebral cortex. Nothing unusual about that.
> >
> > --------
> >
> > So, he beachcombed Whitehead's ideas and presented them in novel form,
> > that's your claim Adrie?  I'm not trying to pin you down or "nail" you in
> > any way.  But it's just such a revelation to me.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> > John C.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "finite players
> play within boundaries.
> Infinite players
> play *with* boundaries."
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-- 
"finite players
play within boundaries.
Infinite players
play *with* boundaries."