From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 14 2003 - 22:54:17 BST
DMB said:
I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that pragmatized mysticism would be about as possible as soft diamonds. (coal) Which is to say it wouldn't be mysticism at all.
Matt:
Have you read any pragmatic mysticism? Paul Tillich? Dewey's A Common Faith? I haven't, but its one of my next stops.
DMB said:
Clearly, Pirsig understands the extent to which our assumptions are steeped in language, but has gotten past whatever it is that forces Rorty to be paralyzed by such a state of affairs. And Pirsig seems to take the attitude that we do metaphysics because its fun, while Rorty seems to think its all just one big useless headache.
Matt:
Clearly Pirsig understands, but what paralysis? But you are right, Rorty, overall, thinks metaphysics to be a useless headache. What Rorty considers fun is not metaphysics, but poking fun at metaphysicians. They're the straight man in Rorty's comedy routine.
DMB said:
(I know Matt will object to such a characterization, but that's only because I have a different vocabulary. :-) )
Matt:
Why the smiley face? You are right for once, after all.
DMB said:
I mean, one of the tests of any thought system has to be it practical implications, but if one decides to use a thought system in a way that has nothing to do with its actual implications and is only a reflection of the will of the distorter, it simply says nothing whatsoever about that thought system. It only tells you about the distorter himself.
Matt:
So how do you tell the difference between somebody using a thought system to get "actual" implications and a distorter getting "fake" implications? Check the thought system right, which is, what, the texts? The thought system was created by somebody, right? The texts were written, correct? So, really, checking for actual implications is a matter of aligning your thoughts with the creator's thought system, and the more they match, the closer you are to getting actual implications of the creator's thought system. Right? So, really, its a matter of aligning your thoughts with the creator's thoughts, which are embodied in his thought system, our thoughts with Pirsig's thoughts. So, why should we align our thoughts with Pirsig's?
If you say, "Because Pirsig has had a Dynamic Quality insight," as far as I can tell, that means Pirsig is a prophet which is like saying, "Pirsig has seen the Truth, we must follow him."
If you say, "Because his thought system works better," then that means its just a mash of our thoughts with other people's thoughts and that the goal is to get better and better thoughts. Right? Isn't that why you like Pirsig so much, because he works better, explains more, etc.?
Well, if it is simply a matter of getting better and better thoughts, who the eff cares if you've distorted Pirsig's thoughts? As long as your thoughts are better, who would really care if you dropped Pirsig when he started to hurt more than help?
As far as I can tell, you'd only care if A) you were doing biography (which I still claim I was predominately doing in the three posts in question and people have willfully distorted) and wanted to know what Pirsig's thoughts were or B) you thought Pirsig was a prophet.
Matt
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