[MF] A thirty-thousand page menu with no food?

david buchanan dmbuchanan at hotmail.com
Sat Jan 28 16:21:31 PST 2006


Kevin, Matt and all MOQers:

Kevin asked:
Why is the Metaphysics of Quality NOT like a restaurant where they give you 
a thirty-thousand page menu but no food?

Matt answered:
I'd have to say it is because Pirsig (like others) realizes the limits of 
metaphysics.  The section you quoted extensively from shows Pirsig running 
together the function of metaphysics with the
function of language...

dmb says:
I think you're projecting Rorty onto Pirsig here and have mixed things up in 
the process. The section Kevin quoted is all about OVERCOMING the two most 
formidible opponents of metaphysics. The mystics and the positivisits are 
both anti-metaphysical, but for opposite reasons. The mystics think 
metaphysics is too scientific and the scientists think metaphysics is too 
mystical. The positivists think that science is "the only source of 
knowledge" and that "metaphysics is simply a collection of unprovable 
assertions".

Matt continued:
...In that section it would seem that mystics take language itself to be 
metaphysical. If we think of the mystics as saying that we don't need menus, 
only the food, and the positivists as saying that there is no food, only the 
menu, Pirsig's way of splitting the difference between mystics and 
postivists can be put in two different ways:

dmb says:
Huh? What does it mean to say that language is metaphysical? It seems to me 
that the mystics are simply saying that reality and names about reality are 
two different things. (Metaphysics, as Pirsig defines it in that section, is 
"that part of philosophy which deals with the nature and structure of 
reality".) The mystics aren't saying that we don't need menus, they're just 
saying that looking at menus and eating lunch are two different things. But, 
again, I don't think its correct to construe Pirsig as "splitting the 
difference" between the two kinds of anti-metaphysical positions. I think 
its pretty clear that he's trying to use metaphysics to build a bridge 
between the two. "if there is a bridge between the two", he writes, 
"metaphysics is where that bridge is located".

Matt continued:
1) Pirsig sides with the mystics in saying that language will itself never 
get us the food, but the positivists are right in thinking that language can 
help us, in fact by pointing the way towards the
food.

dmb says:
Positivists think language can point the way towards the food? But, but, but 
didn't you just say that the positivists think "there is no food, only the 
menu"? At least one of us is a bit mixed up here.

Matt continued:
2) Pirsig sides with the positivists in saying that language isn't itself 
metaphysical, that it isn't supposed to get us at the food, but the mystics 
are right in thinking that there is food that isn't
language.

dmb says:
No, Pirsig sides with the positivists in saying that knowledge has to be 
based on experience. "The MOQ RESTATES the empirical basis of logical 
positivism with more precision, more inclusiveness, more explanatory power 
than it has previously had." (Emphasis is Pirsig's) And in saying that 
"Values are MORE empirical, in fact, than subjects and objects" and that 
"Quality is the primary empirical reality", the MOQ is agreeing with the 
mystics in thinking that language (descriptions and judgements) is not that 
primary empirical reality, that names about reality (sq) is distinct from 
reality (DQ).

Matt continued:
I think both ways more or less amount to the same thing.  I think people 
tending towards mysticism will, following Pirsig, prefer the first 
description.  People tending towards positivism, which is to say 
anti-metaphysics, will, like me, prefer the second description.  But the 
consequences of the two positions, I think, are the same and its a kind of 
pragmatism that gets us there.  As long as people who like the first 
remember that language can be helpful and people who like the second 
remember that there is food that isn't language, then there's no 
philosophical difference between the two (at least at this level of 
generality and on this particular point).

dmb says:
As I just tried to explain, I think you're misreading this section and so 
neither description seems right. Again, in this section Pirsig is saying 
that metaphysics is the bridge between these two anti-metaphysical stances 
and he's trying to overcome their objections to metaphysics with 
metaphysics. And so I'm quite baffled at the assertion that all this can be 
interpreted as anti-metaphysical.

Matt added:
(And for anyone who has been following my arguments with DMB over the last 
few years, I've concluded that this is a very basic way of describing our 
philosophical differences.  DMB prefers the first  description, I prefer the 
second.  As far as I can tell, DMB still thinks there is a very large 
philosophical disagreement between us, but more and more I've not been able 
to discern what it is.  It seems more and more to me to be simply a verbal 
disagreement: he likes the first, I like the second.  That being said, I 
still think DMB hooks his train up to the wrong language once in a while 
(like "pure sensation"), and those occasions have led me to think there _is_ 
a philosophical disagreement in the area, but if there is, I thinks it's in 
the minutiae rather than in the broad area of agreement we do in fact seem 
to hold.)

dmb says:
Its kind of funny that we disagree even about our disagreement. As I 
understand that section, you've offered choices wher Pirsig did not intend 
to offer either. On top of retaining the distinction mystic make between 
names and reality and retaining the empirical basis of positivism, he also 
overcomes their anti-metaphysical objections by pointing out that neither of 
them can escape metaphysics, that metaphysics is part of life. "As long as 
you're inside a logical, coherent universe of thought you can't escape 
metaphysics. Logical positivism's a criteria for 'meaningfulness' were pure 
metaphysics, he thought". It seems to me that even Rorty's slogan that its 
"words all the way down" is pure metaphysics too. It says that the nature 
and structure of reality is linguistic.

I recently came across a paper on ZAMM by a Bruce Charlton. I'd say that it 
could have been written by you, except that I could actually comprehend what 
the guy is saying. In any case, he quotes Rorty approvingly and otherwise 
tends to make the same moves. He also doesn't like language like "pure 
sensation". In response to the assertion that value is "the leading edge of 
reality", that "value is the predecessor of structure. Its the 
pre-intellectual reality that gives rise to it", Charlton complains that 
Pirsig is "coming close" to epistemology and thinks epistemolgy "is just 
what he is warning us aganst". He then concludes that "the whole discussion 
makes no sense and is not necessary" He complains that Pirsig "reifies" 
Quality in these claims and that theygo "against the treand of the rest of 
the book". In other words, he is misreading Pirsig the same way you do. He 
applies that Rortarian critique and wants to see Pirsig as the same kind of 
pragmatist.

There is a post script in which Charlton explains that this paper was 
written before Lila was published. "It differs significantly in explicitly 
pursuing a 'Metapysics of Quality', and therefore advocating a different 
philosophy from that of ZAMM: no longer Pragmatism but something else." He 
also says that he sent his paper to Pirsig and recieved a response. He 
doesn't quote Pirsig, but explains that "for reasons explained in Lila, 
Pirsig has now come to believe that Pragmatism is incomplete and that the 
MOQ is its completion."

Thanks.
dmb

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