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

[Matt Kundert]

Kevin,

Kevin said:
Matt, where did the issue of language come from?  The passage I originally 
quoted (Lila pp. 62-64) doesn't mention language. ...  Of course language is 
an expression of thought.  But it's not the only expression.  I would 
consider the myriad behaviors that are also expressions of people's 
thoughts...and feelings.

Matt:
Its true, that is a place where I read a little bit into Pirsig.  The reason 
I do is, one, when he says that for mystics metaphysics is like a menu with 
no food, what is a metaphysics but words?  And two, I don't know what 
"thought" is supposed to be if its not "language."  I don't know what 
non-linguistic thought is.  True, what we call feelings may not be 
linguistic, but when it comes to thinking I think its linguistic or 
something else.  This is one of the places that my pantheon grows a little 
bigger than just Pirsig and I've learned that thinking of language as trying 
to "express" something is a bad idea (at least when trying to pick which 
metaphors we use when doing philosophy).  I don't really want to get into 
the issue, but if you want an idea of what I'm thinking, you could look at 
my post (amidst my overlong conversation with DMB) "Language, SOM, and the 
MoQ" (Nov 16).  The connection is that I think language-as-expression is a 
mirror image of representationalism and should be ejected with the rest of 
SOM.

Matt

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