From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2005 - 18:45:51 BST
The second half,
Anthony said:
As regards your contention that Pirsig requires “an ahistorical sense (i.e.
“natural kind”) of philosophy” to maintain his philosophy-philosophology
distinction the philosophical tradition of the Far East indicates that the
study of the Western canon is not a necessary pre-requisite to construct an
analysis of the perennial problems of philosophy (such as the nature of the
self). Moreover, these problems can arise from the contemplation of nature,
the general human condition and what the arts and modern sciences indicate.
The latter can also suffice as the indicators for showing when philosophical
problems have been solved (as in the evidence provided by quantum mechanics
regarding the Buddhist notion of the self) without requiring reference to
traditional Western philosophy.
Matt:
This is a complete misunderstanding my argument. The “ahistorical sense” of
philosophy that I contend needs to be assumed to hold up Pirsig’s
distinction _is_ “the perennial problems of philosophy.” You aren’t
rebuking my argument, your owning up to the ahistorical sense (remember, its
_not historical_) when you say these problems can arise simply from “the
contemplation of nature” and “the general human condition.” As I said in
the paper, thinking of philosophy as a natural kind commits you to the view
that there are problems “that one will always encounter _simply by virtue of
existing_.”
This has nothing to do with the Western tradition, just as it has nothing to
do with the Eastern because it _has nothing to do with tradition_. That’s
the point of an ahistorical sense. When you say that I quote evidence from
David Hall “tellingly” that the Western tradition gets in the way, you’ve
completely missed the boat on the argument, which has to be part of _your_
argument, because the natural kind argument says that, if any traditions get
in the way wholesale, _all_ traditions get in the way, Eastern as much as
Western, simply because they are traditions, not because of any of their
content.
I’m not saying you need Western philosophy to do philosophy. I’m saying you
need a _tradition_ to do philosophy because without a tradition you wouldn’t
be able to do anything (I only argued for that indirectly in the paper
because my main purpose was to bring out the two choices, tradition or
natural kind, not to argue explicitly at length for one over the other).
Western philosophical examples were simply my arbitrary choice because I
have more background in Western philosophy and not enough to be completely
sure of my footing in Eastern. The paper could have just as easily been
written from an Eastern philosophical point of view with Eastern
philosophical examples.
Furthermore, I’m not sure why you brought up at all the unoriginality of the
philosophy/philosophology distinction. Naturally I wouldn’t be surprised if
a lot of people have made similar distinctions because my argument was that
the ahistorical sense of philosophy has been with us for a long time, at
least the time of Plato.
Anthony said:
Finally, though you don’t mention this, I guess the underlying reason that
you are so concerned with the philosopher-philosophologist distinction is
because Rorty essentially perceives himself as being a philosophologist.
…
I suppose therefore that you think the philosopher-philosophologist
distinction must be dismantled to prevent Rorty (as a philosophologist)
being considered as being in a derivative and secondary class to Robert
Pirsig and other (original) philosophers. However, isn’t your project of
trying to undermine the philosopher-philosophologist distinction rather
inane as you can’t really believe that Rorty is as unoriginal as he might
modestly seem to claim?
Matt:
Is this an example of good, non-distorting reading? I do believe I say at
the beginning of my paper:
“And then, as I read and absorbed more and more of pragmatism and Richard
Rorty’s philosophy, I had to come to terms with what Pirsig meant. It
looked more and more as though Pirsig would call Rorty a philosophologist,
while retaining the title philosopher for himself. But, because of my
general liking of both Rorty and Pirsig, and because both philosophers refer
to themselves as taking on the pragmatist mantle, what did that really
mean?”
Isn’t it a little disingenuous to imply that I don’t at least say something
about Rorty and philosophology?
As regards to your mining of the reason, that Rorty perceives himself as a
philosophologist, you’ve made a couple of errors. One, Rorty doesn’t think
of philosophy as a natural kind and so couldn’t possibly erect any kind of
distinction that would leave something like “real philosophy” on one side
and “mere philosophology” on the other. Instead, he must be talking about
something else in that interview. Something like creativity. Which brings
me to two, you equivocate on the meaning of the philosophy/philosophology
distinction at the exact moment you use it. Pirsig may use it to try and
distinguish creative, real philosophers from historical, fake philosophers,
but that distinction so obviously doesn’t hold up its hard to even think it.
Just because you know a lot about history, you can’t be original? Just
because you weave in a lot of history in your philosophy, you’re not
creative? That’s just seems plainly dumb. In fact, one might argue that
it’s a lot more likely that you’ll end up being creative if you know a lot
about the past, instead of simply thinking you’re creative but historians
(or even contemporaries) can easily show that you aren’t. The only way to
get the distinction to work is to drop concern for creativity and work with
ahistorical/historical, which in the end is the only way Pirsig can
distinguish between real philosophers and mere philosophologists.
So, when you say, “isn’t your project of trying to undermine the
philosopher-philosophologist distinction rather inane as you can’t really
believe that Rorty is as unoriginal as he might modestly seem to claim?” I
have to say first, to use the distinction it can’t have anything to do with
originality or creativity. And second, I believe prima facie neither
Rorty’s modest claims of unoriginality nor Pirsig’s grandiose claims of
originality. The only way to prove those things is to do a little history.
If there is a mistake in my essay it’s that I didn’t say enough about the
difference between where I drove Pirsig’s distinction and how Pirsig himself
sees the distinction. Clearly I didn’t say enough about the issue of
creativity and originality (all I did say was at the end of Part I, where I
concluded with “To get any mileage out of this distinction, Pirsig needs
philosophy to have a heart and the traditional heart of philosophy are the
problems with which philosophers have thought were eternal,” basically
meaning I thought the way Pirsig constructed the distinction required an
answer to my questions before questions about using the distinction to cut a
line between originality and unoriginality were asked), but I would still
maintain that there is a lot of evidence in Pirsig holding up my end of the
argument (e.g., his anti-academic attitude). In light of that, I’ll look at
adding an appendix or something to amend that mistake (with something like
what I wrote to Erin, et al, just now).
Matt
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