From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Apr 11 2004 - 00:13:48 BST
Hello MOQer focers:
I was quite pleased and surprised to see that the topic has been held over
for another month. Thank you. Please allow me to re-assert the issue as it
was originally concieved. Because of the requirement that the topic be
presented as a 'yes or no' question, my suggestion took this particular
form...
Does Pirsig's work help us sort out the distinctions between metaphysics and
the mystical reality?
But the truth is that the issue I've tried to raise doesn't really fit into
a
'yes or no' question. (In fact, I think we should get rid of that
requirement. Not that the harm is great, just that it does no good at all.)
In any case, I hope you'll cut me some slack on this, fellow philosophers.
The question is NOT really about whether or not Pirsig "helps". Only the
stingiest of philosophers would refuse to admit that he is of at least SOME
help. But let me repeat this crucial point; The issue I've tried to raise
here is about the meaning of distinction. The last thing I had in mind was a
narrow, hair-splitting debate about the use of terms. I hope we can get at
something with more soul and substance. Please don't be distracted by the
clumsy way I formed the question. Just because it can't be squeezed into a
'yes or no' question certainly doesn't mean it is an unimportant question.
(I wonder if any interesting questions can be answered so simply.) Instead,
look at the central terms of the question; metaphysics and the mystical
reality. That's what I'm asking about. By sorting out the differences
between philosophical mysticism and the mystic reality itself, I hope to get
at the very center of the MOQ, to help us focus on the heart of it. Mystical
reality and metaphyisics are contradictory terms, but they are at the core
of the MOQ because it is essentially a metaphysics of mystical reality...
"Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there
is a knower and known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A
metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there isn't any
metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical
definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means
that a 'MoQ' is essentially a contradiction in terms." (LILA ch5)
At this point last month, Sam raised a question about Pirsig's use of the
term "Quality". Please, let's say that my question or the use of this quote
my have legitmately raised the question in Sam's imagination, but my
question is not about the use of the term, nor was the quote originally
included becasue of its use. Instead, the quote tells us what the MOQ is in
essence while it also points out one of the major distinctions between
metaphysics and the mystical reality. The former must have definitions while
the latter is beyond all definitions. This is a very clear line and a decent
place to start the discussion, no? We see this same distinction even more
fully in this quote where Zen meditators, Indian payote eaters and "some of
the most honored philosophers in history" all "share a common belief", one
that draws the same line...
"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics:
Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language;
that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of
dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American Church argues
that peyote can force-feed a mystic understanding upon those who were
normally resistant to it,..." LILA (ch 5)
The true nature of reality is undivided. That's the pre-intellectual cutting
edge of experience. But language and intellect divide by their very nature
and create an illusion of seperateness. Again, he's drawing the same line
and I find it only fitting that this distinction is widely recognized from
both philosophical and religious perspectives. It tells us that Pirsig is
not alone in this and it tells us what sorts of mystical perspectives are
most comparable to and compatible with Pirsig's views.
So far, this post has only been concerned with re-setting the original
question. I'm trying to explain that we ought not get bogged down in
discussing the distinction between this term and that or between this
thought or that. I'm trying to focus the discussion on the distinction
between thoughts and terms on the one hand and the mystical reality that is
beyond all thoughts and terms on the other. Even further, I was hoping that
we'd get practical and personal on this one because the distinction, the
line if you prefer, is between static intellect and dynamic experience,
between the illusion of dividedness that plauges all mankind and the unitive
transforming experience that shatters said illusion.
"American Indian mysticism is the same platypus in a world divided primarily
into classic and romantic patterns as under a subject-object division. When
an American Indian goes into isolation and fasts in order to achieve a
vision, the vision he seeks is not a romantic understanding of the surface
beauty of the world. Neither is it a vision of the world's classic
intellectual forms. It is something else. Since the whole metaphysics had
started with an attempt to explain Indian mysticism Phaedrus finally
abandoned this classic-romantic split as a primary division of the MOQ."
Thanks,
dmb
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