From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 10 2005 - 18:38:18 BST
Hi Paul,
> Sam, Dave (you guys should start a band),
A band? How about a wrestling roadshow?
>
> Sam said to DMB:
>>....your emphasis on 'experience' is a problem,
>>because (as I have gone into many times before) it presumes a Modernist
>>epistemology (aka SOM) which I reject...
>
> Paul: As a general response to this statement, I've been thinking a lot
> about the philosophical problems with the word 'experience' with respect
> to
> the MOQ i.e. the way it brings with it a load of SOM clichés and
> assumptions, as you rightly suggest.
I would very much enjoy a detailed discussion of that, if you have the time
or inclination.
> I actually suggested to Pirsig
> recently that perhaps the MOQ should avoid the term 'experience' and just
> talk about static and Dynamic Quality to avoid being drawn into all the
> old
> problems. He doesn't think this is necessary as long as it is understood
> that it is being used in an MOQ context*.
> If you think of Wittgenstein's definition of 'meaning' as 'use in a
> language
> game' then I think we could learn to use 'experience' on this forum in a
> way
> that shouldn't lead you to contest that it necessarily "presumes a
> Modernist
> epistemology (aka SOM)."
I think that's fine as long as the distinctions are made clear, between
"experience as used in contemporary (Modernist) philosophy" and "experience
as used in the MOQ". I'm unclear on the latter, which is why I'd welcome a
detailed discussion. Also:
> I'll leave Dave to respond about his (Campbell's, etc) use of the term in
> the context of this discussion.
My worry, or hunch, is that Pirsig has taken William James' understanding of
mysticism - which is definitely drawing on the SOMish accounts of
experience - into the MoQ (and that DMB does the same, as does Campbell,
Watts etc. . That was the gist of my Schleiermacher essay, which, whilst
flawed (especially on Kant) I still think pointed out the truth. But I'm
aware that I need to argue for it more rigorously than I have yet.
Now whilst DMB will no doubt not believe this, my rejections of mystical
'experience' don't come solely from the Christian perspective, but from
Wittgenstein. "Wittgenstein's exasperation with James is a response not so
much to his practicing science, or claiming to be practicing science when he
is doing somethign else, but, more fundamentally, to James' empiricism, his
believe that _experience_ is a sufficient fundamental category." It is the
making of experience into a fundamental category (THE fundamental category)
which I think Pirsig has taken on from James (presumably via Northrop),
thereby inheriting something from SOM.
(I also suspect that there is a genealogy going from Western SOM thinking,
via Swedenborg - big influence on James - to the Zen tradition, especially
Suzuki, the big influence on Pirsig? - but again, I'm nowhere near being in
a position to justify that suspicion.)
Thanks for your comments - they're always lucid and helpful.
Sam
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion
that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing
positive knowledge." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
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