From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2005 - 18:56:51 BST
The second part,
Robin and David suggest more or less the same reading of the
philosophy/philosophology distinction as Steve. Robin initially said that a
philosopher is anyone “that does not blindly follow the ‘truths’ found by
someone before him.” Robin has since capitulated on that view for reasons
similar to those I offered above. Robin said that a philosophologist is
someone who uses static patterns to combat static patterns, while a
philosopher is someone who “uses his own dynamic/creative beliefs and
experiences to create a new philosophy or to identify with an existing one.”
Robin said she noticed the contradiction here. The problem, I think, is
the same one I pointed out with Steve and the exultation of the “internal
struggle that creates Quality.” Beliefs are static patterns, and so the
apparent contradiction in Robin’s formulation. But if we accept that our
beliefs are static patterns, and that most of our lives are static, but it
is the interplay of warring static patterns that breeds Dynamic creativeness
(as in my description of how new arguments are born), I think we can see how
creativeness should be praised. I think this formulation also pays better
homage to Pirsig’s description of static latching, where Dynamic innovations
move us to a higher plateau of Quality, but then become crusted over as they
become old, and eventually become thrown away as new Dynamic innovations are
created on the shoulders of the old ones. As Dewey would say, the bad is
simply a discarded good.
But if we accept these views of creativity, I think we’ve left the
philosopher/philosophologist distinction behind. As Erin has said, the
application to cases makes the whole thing very blurry. The reason is
because the distinction is supposed to be for deciding who is and isn’t a
philosopher and it isn’t completely clear how creativity plays into it. If
the distinction just breaks down into a distinction between originality and
unoriginality, why have the philosopher/philosophologist distinction when we
already have the originality/unoriginality distinction? The reason for the
confusion is because Pirsig builds the distinction around two descriptors,
not one. “Creative” is on the “philosopher” side of the distinction, but so
is “inattentive to history.” The second descriptor gives us an easy basis
for applying the distinction (“Does he pay attention to the history of
philosophy?”), but the first descriptor is the term of approbation. Pirsig
conflates “creativity” with “inattention to history” to create an easy way
to apply the distinction and a reason to. Without the creativity
descriptor, people would begin to wonder what’s wrong with reading history.
But with the creativity descriptor, we have our reason: because you’re not
being creative or original.
However, my argument has been (among others) that the original/unoriginal
distinction cuts _across_ the historical/unhistorical distinction. But this
equivocation in our description of the philosophy/philosophology distinction
is what leads David to first say, “philosophology is when the writing is
very static and offers nothing original,” but then to add, “but that's not
to say there is zero creativity in philosophologists.” This equivocation is
bred because of the way Pirsig constructs the distinction. So when Robin
asks, “Would you say either role (philosophologer or philosopher) is morally
better than the other, and on which basis?” the only reason we may scratch
our head a little and wonder is because of Pirsig’s conflation. If you want
to emphasize creativity, you’ll say that philosophers are better. If you
want to emphasize the fun and bonuses of reading history, you’ll deny that
one is better than the other. What we have to remember, though, is that for
Pirsig, the distinction was created to distinguish real from fake
philosophers. And real philosophers are creative and inattentive to
history, though it is unclear how Pirsig sees the two descriptors being
related. The only thing I can figure is that he thinks people who know less
about history are more likely to be creative, much like the baby who smiles
in wonder at everything because she’s experiencing everything for the first
time. But should we really expect the baby to make significant innovations
in philosophy?
I’d like to leave this for the moment to rephrase my argument to perhaps
make it more clear. I think people are confused about my argument because
they think I’m arguing that historically-conscious philosophers
(specifically philosophers steeped in the history of philosophy) are the
real philosophers. This isn’t true. My argument is that Pirsig’s
distinction _forces_ us to decide who the real philosophers are, when the
spirit of his philosophy tells us that we _shouldn’t_ decide. Because of
the peculiar thing philosophy is, gathering wisdom and seeing how things
hang together, there is no way to pin down philosophy except for parochial
reasons of expediency because there is so much wisdom to be had because
there are so many _things_ to be hung together. You can’t cut a distinction
between history and substance because there is no substance outside of our
mostly unconscious, educative reception of the history of humankind. If you
do pin down a substance (as you’ll have to), it will be for parochial,
expedient reasons, i.e. personal reasons, based on the type of wisdom you
want to generate, the types of things you want to hang together. My focus
(or “substance”) has been on the history of Western philosophy because those
are the things I want to hang together. What I’m not doing is saying that
what I do makes me a real philosopher. We are all real philosophers.
Pirsig’s emphasis on personal creativity comes from Pirsig’s love of genius.
He wants us all to try and overcome ourselves, i.e. overcome our inherited
static patterns, our inherited “train of collective consciousness.” This is
the theme that resonates so strongly with the existentialist theme of
“authenticity.” To become authentic is to engage in a Nietzschean project
of self-overcoming in which we, in Nietzsche’s words, “become who we are.”
But I don’t think this love of genius is motivated simply by the personal
need to be authentic. Throughout Pirsig’s works he’s trying to help us out
of the spiritual crisis of our age. I think Pirsig’s emphasis on
creativity, genius, _Dynamic Quality_ stems from his recognition that
humanity’s geniuses are the ones who have created who we all are, that,
following Shelley, poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Pirsig wants us all to reach for this creative genius, reach for Dynamic
Quality, and he wants us to do so, not simply to be unlike anybody else who
has ever been, but because it will raise humanity to a higher plateau. This
is where I think Pirsig’s claim that we _need_ both static and Dynamic
Quality is important. Humanity’s train is static patterns of Quality and we
need brujos to expand the train, to help us all become better. But,
contrary to the way Pirsig sometimes writes, I do not think there is any
point in saying that it is better to be a brujo than an underlaborer. We
need both to move the train along.
Matt
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