From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Mon Jan 10 2005 - 00:39:25 GMT
Matt, (amongst many other things !), you said ...
[Quote]
But as long as Pirsig's philosophy maintains a
traditional metaphysical dichotomy, that between appearance and reality, he
has to answer the skeptic, and so is forced into the Kantian problematic.
[Unquote]
I think that's my catch 22 again.
I do believe that there is something like "pure" unmediated experience
available to us, not perceived through prior learned culture etc, but
perhaps because I still miss the sense of the term mysticism I also fail to
see the debate against epistemology.
Surely epistemology is simply to ask the question "what does it all mean",
where mysticism is simply the domain where the answer is "I don't know" ?
I'll watch and learn.
Ian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 8:10 PM
Subject: MD Reply to Paul's Notes on Sam's Essay
> Hello all,
>
> I think Sam is doing some very important work in relation to mysticism. I
> think his strides to rehabilitate the notion of mysticism sans the
> philosophically suspect concept of "experience" is much needed,
particularly
> for our interpretations of Pirsig's work. And I think his archeaology of
> the conceptual machinery at work in Pirsig's mysticism is a much needed
step
> in the right direction.
>
> Sam sent me an advance copy of his essay, for which I was very thankful.
In
> my reply to him, though, I warned Sam that the very end of his essay,
where
> he says, "Pirsig's work - probably via William James - has inherited a
> conceptual shape from Schleiermacher," despite the caveat directly before
> ("this is not to suggest a direct borrowing"), might create a misdirected
> backlash. I think that this is what we are seeing. The importance of
Sam's
> suggestive genealogy is not biographical, is not primarily concerned with
> finding the direct transference of doctrines. It was in creating a
> conceptual milieu, a large expansive background against which Pirsig grew
> out of, much like Pirsig's genealogy of SOM.
>
> Paul's dismissive denials of Pirsig's involvement with Kantian problems I
> think hinge on calling Sam out on a largely misplaced genetic fallacy.
But
> like I said, I think this misses the brunt of the suggestion. In his
essay,
> Sam largely spent his time suggesting that Pirsig has inheirited Kantian
> baggage and laying out the (very suggestive) apparatus that should look
very
> familiar to people who have read and absorbed ZMM and Lila. What Sam
didn't
> do is provide much argumentation for his suggestion. Sam was more
providing
> a "prolegomena to a future critique." This might be why Paul's reply
mainly
> consisted in denials, but this is certainly not to say that the
> argumentation does not exist. I would like to supply some of this
> argumentation, most of which I think Sam would be sympathetic with. Not
to
> tag myself in, but with Sam suffering from the flu and a "holiday"
(christ,
> how many "holidays" do you Europeans take a year? seems like you're all
> always on holiday), I would like to get the dialogue started on the right
> foot.
>
> As I've said, I think Paul's reply consisted mainly in denials of Pirsig's
> involvement in Kantian problems. To me, this all reminds me of a far off
> debate I was engaged in with DMB. DMB suggested that my critiques of
> Pirsigian mysticism (which parrallel Sam's) completely missed the boat
> because mysticism has nothing to do with epistemology. I read Paul's
reply
> as amounting to the same thing. Mysticism has nothing to do with
> epistemology, so it has nothing to do with Descartes or Kant or anything
> else like it in the West. At the time of my debate with DMB, Sam rejoined
> to DMB that, though mysticism may not be epistemology, it may have
> epistemological consequences, i.e., the _claims_ made on behalf of
mysticism
> may have epistemological status. I think this is right and I see the
> continued denials that Pirsigian philosophy runs into the problems of the
> West as denials that Pirsig has to do epistemology, as denying that he has
> to answer the skeptic. But as long as Pirsig's philosophy maintains a
> traditional metaphysical dichotomy, that between appearance and reality,
he
> has to answer the skeptic, and so is forced into the Kantian problematic.
> Naturally, the denial of having to answer the skeptic, though, is only the
> first step of denial. The second step is to then deny that Pirsig
maintains
> an appearance/reality distinction. It is these twin denials that I think
> facile and for which I will run through my long standing argument.
>
> As Sam said, this all revolves around the notion of "pure experience."
> "Pure experience," or "unmediated experience," is unintelligible without
its
> counterpart "unpure experience," or "mediated experience." The
distinction
> between unmediated and mediated experience is Pirsig's distinction between
> Dynamic and static Quality and it is also the distinction that has
> traditionally been used to describe the appearance/reality distinction. I
> have been told time and time again that this distinction is _descriptive_
> and not normative, unlike the appearance/reality distinction, and so does
> not need an epistemology. This line of defense is essentially what all
the
> other particular ones boil down to, but it will not work because Pirsig
> himself dissolves the distinction between descriptive and normative uses
by
> saying that "values are reality." He is in effect saying that all
> descriptions are normative.
>
> To see this more specifically in Pirsig's work, we should first look at
> Pirsig's description of evolution as the "migration of static patterns
> towards Dynamic Quality." (I must apologize to everyone because I will not
> be able give citations or direct quotes (I am without my materials). I
> deplore this sloppiness as much as anyone, particularly when attempting to
> do what I am trying to do, but I can only tell people to remind me to find
> particular passages I'm thinking of that you can't find and for people to
> keep their eyes open for misquotes that might have interpretive
> consequences. I'm quoting and alluding to passages from memory, so I
can't
> be postive on fidelity.) Pirsig says that the MoQ identifies the
undefined
> "betterness" inherent in evolution's description of "survival of the
> fittest" with DQ. DQ is "better" than static patterns. DQ is "more
moral"
> than static patterns. It might be replied that Pirsig's metaphysical
> apparatus is simply supplying us with interpretive categories, a set of
> glasses to see the world or a set of boxes within which we can stick stuff
> to make sense of the world. But again, this won't work as a rejoinder
> because Pirsig isn't simply supplying us with a set of neutral glasses to
> see stuff or boxes to stick stuff. Pirsig uses his metaphysical apparatus
> to _justify_ certain normative decisions. For instance, his claim that it
> is moral to kill germs because we are further along the evolutionary
track.
> In other words, our static patterns are more evolved, closer to Dynamic
> Quality, i.e., we are better than the germs.
>
> This claim that some things (like ideas, human rights, capitalism) are
> closer to Dynamic Quality, or more Dynamic, than other things _and
therefore
> better_ is the exact claim of the appearance/reality distinction. Some
> things are closer to reality than other things, which are mere apperances.
> This claim draws us into epistemology because when you say that, e.g.,
> capitalism is more Dynamic than communism, the skeptic raises his hand and
> says, "How do you know?" The traditional Pirsigian answer has been
"Because
> it's better" which amounts to "Because it is, because you just know it
when
> you experience it." But this isn't an answer, it is a refusal to answer
> because the skeptic can keep asking, "How? How? Why? Why?" To draw the
> connection between appearance/reality and static/Dynamic even tighter, I
> would point out two things. First, unmediated, pure experience is
> consistently aligned with _both_ Dynamic Quality, one half of the first
cut
> of reality, and Quality, the monistic reality that sits behind the first
> distinction. And second, that mysticism in general identifies the
mediation
> between us and reality as language. In Pirsigian philosophy, language is
a
> static pattern (of some sort) and Dynamic Quality is the "pre-intellectual
> edge of experience."
>
> This is why I think there is an appearance/reality distinction at work in
> Pirsig, the distinction that Sam is pointing to when he draws his
parrallels
> between Pirsig and Kant's phenomena/noumena distinction, and why I agree
> with Sam that Pirsig doesn't seem to escape the Kantian, SOMic
problematic.
> So this is the bulk of my argument: To deny the need to do epistemology,
> and maintain an appearance/reality distinction, is to regress to a
> pre-Cartesian "metaphysical dogmatism" where we simply assert our correct
> interpretations of the True Reality without any criteria for success. We
> need to realize that even if, for instance, Eastern mysticism developed
> independently its own notion of "pure experience," that if the work
demanded
> of a concept parrallels the work demanded of it elsewhere (or the work
> demanded of a concept is the same work demanded of another concept) that
the
> one tradition has relevant questions and innovations for the other
> tradition. And we need to realize that, whatever their faults, Descartes
> and Kant were steps _forward_ on the dialectical path that Plato began--if
> only because they brought it that much closer to its demise. Epistemology
> is the grown up version of Plato's dialectic, his method for ascertaining
> Truth. Descartes realized that if epistemology did not come first, all we
> have is dogmatic, assertive speculation. After tunneling our way from
> Descartes to Hume, Kant heroically "woke from his dogmatic slumbers" and
> realized the same thing. If you are going to do metaphysics, you must do
> epistemology.
>
> If the denial of epistemology is _not_ a regress, you need to explain why
we
> need a mediated/unmediated distinction at all. What part does it play,
what
> work does it do? Sam's attempt to redescribe mysticism without reference
to
> "experience" and my past attempts to redescribe the notion of Dynamic
> Quality as "metaphor" and "compliment" are attempts at rehabilitating
> Pirsig's conceptual machinery without the mediated/unmediated distinction.
> Because if the distinction plays the part _Pirsig_ wants it to play, an
> _explanatory_/_justificatory_ role, then you've blundered into having to
> answer the skeptic, and so epistemology, and so the Subject-Object
> Metaphysics.
>
> Matt
>
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