From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Sun Dec 26 2004 - 18:22:22 GMT
Hi Chin,
> I read the essay again, and it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but
> sense it was posted here on the MOQ, I imagine that is just me.
Not at all, it was actually put together in a bit of haste, and it could do with being unpacked and
clarified (although the last bit was deliberately sketchy). Perhaps I'll do a version 2 once I've
done the material on James and Plotinus for DMB.
My basic point is that the structure of the MoQ, specifically the 'pre-intellectual cutting edge of
reality', seems to correspond exactly with Schleiermacher, as presented by Jantzen. Thus, "immediate
consciousness points to the stage before subject and object are differentiated. There is,
Schleiermacher suggests, a primal stage of consciousness in any experience, a stage before the
objective content is discriminated from the subjective participation. This consciousness cannot be
consciousness of anything, it cannot have any specificity, because by the time the object of
consciousness has been specified one has already moved away from the primal undifferentiated state."
This just struck me as worth pursuing. Consider the following theses:
a) Schleiermacher created the contemporary understanding of mysticism as something flowing from felt
personal experience;
b) Schleiermacher described that felt personal experience as preceding the separation between
subject and object;
c) Schleiermacher's motivation for this was to extricate religious epistemology (how we know) from
Kant, so that the religious realm is not discarded.
It seems to me that the above theses are true - although we can argue all of them, as we no doubt
will - but most importantly, if you substitute Pirsig for Schleiermacher, value for religion, and DQ
for felt personal experience, then you have something remarkably close to the MoQ. That's what I
mean by saying that the MoQ and Schleiermacher's ideas share a conceptual shape, and that's what I
think is so interesting - is Pirsig simply recapitulating Schleiermacher? As I said in the essay,
I'm not in a position (yet) to answer the question, but the evidence I've read so far seems
tremendously suggestive. So I thought it was worth sharing the question to see what other people
think. I know DMB thinks this is tosh, but ever since he discovered the extent of my Christian
convictions, he thinks everything I say is tosh.
I'd love to know if other people also think this is boring/untrue/irrelevant to understanding the
MoQ.
Sam
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