From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 23 2005 - 01:56:08 GMT
Paul, Matt & all:
Matt said:
..........................................................I would never
claim that people have to do or understand mainstream philosophy. But
if you are going to claim Pirsig's superiority to mainstream philosophy,
it would be nice if it were backed up somehow. My interest in Pirsig is
in his intersection with the history of philosophy, how Pirsig joins in
that conversation. But I don't know how to express those thoughts if
there isn't a general understanding of how the history of philosophy has
played itself out. (I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert, but I
am claiming to have a general knowledge of it.) I'm certainly not ending
the dialogue, I simply want to note my discouragement and frustration.
I'll keep trying to figure out ways of saying what I want to say, but I
feel like I'm playing with a handicap.
dmb says:
I would've imagined a working knowledge of the history of philosophy to be a
blessing, not a curse. I would've imagined such a background would only make
it easier for you to explain things, to have a philosophical conversation.
Instead, you seem strangley paralyzed by it. It seems that its not your
fault so much as everyone else's. I appreciate your attempts to soften the
point, but aren't you basically saying that nobody has the skills to justify
their claims about the MOQ or even the skills to do philosophy at all...
Paul said to Matt:
....This justification is achieved by collapsing one side of Pirsig's
philosophy/philosophology distinction into the other, i.e., one can't
properly do philosophy without 'philosophology', thus denying the title
of philosophy to non-academic contemplation and effectively setting up a
false dichotomy between sophisticated academic philosophers and armchair
dilettantes, leaving us in no doubt about on which side of this fence
you reside.
dmb adds:
Don't get me wrong. I certainly think its a good thing to know what one is
talking about and a systematic survey is a fine way to inspect a field, but
I think you want to play a very specific game. Also, Pirsig has own ideas
about the history of philosophy and paints a different picture. To put it
plainly, knowledge of the mystical reality was lost long ago. This might not
sound like philosophy as you understand it, but that's just part of the
blind spot. In fact, I've been investigating the pre-Socratic philosophers
for a while and am fairly well convinced that that philosophy began with
these mystical experiences at their very center. That's what it was ALL
about. As I understand Pirsig, Plato was talking about it too. His Quality
was not identical because Plato tried to turn it into something static, but
they were both talking about that mystical reality, that undivided reality.
Now its buried deep, so deep that you don't know what the hell I'm talking
about, huh? It started at the beginning and so a survey of Western
philosophy is likely to make things worse rather than better with respect to
the blindspot surrounding mysticism.
Paul said:
Secondly, if we are looking to understand the MOQ in its inescapable,
albeit implicit, historic context then let us not exclude the history of
eastern philosophy nor indeed accounts of Native American mysticism.
dmb adds:
Zackly. We can play the history game if we broaden our parameters. And we
have to in order to be fair simply because the MOQ goes beyond Western
philosophy. The perennial philosophy includes both East and West, ancient
and modern. Philosophical mysticism ain't that particular about particulars,
but it does put the mystical reality back at the center of things. It might
just seem like mere contradiction at this point, but I don't think a working
knowledge of the Western tradition is the crucial thing to have in
understanding the MOQ. I think the MOQ is incomprehensible without an
understanding of mysticism. And since the Western tradition is fundamentally
hostile to mysticism your background might actually be holding you back on
this point.
Paul's killer question:
Did philosophy invent the contemplation of experience or did the
contemplation of experience invent philosophy?
dmb says:
I'm tempted to go off on an imaginary journey back to the days of the
caveman, in cold, starving winter, when the best thing to do is lay under
warm, heavy fur and dream your brains out, but I'll skip all that. Let's
just say it seems obvious to me that philosophy grew out of some very basic
human experiences. Philosophy was invented by a guy who'd been asleep and
half-dead for several weeks. When he emerged from the darkness of the cave
and began to speak, his elegant and fasicinating reports were accompanied by
the worst case of morning-breath ever. He was enlightened, but he
desperately needed a toothbrush. Halitoseus Trismegastice was his name. His
auspicous countenance glow with the dharmakaya light, but you definately
wouldn't want him to kiss you, not without a little mouthwash first. That's
how the mystical secret was lost. No one wanted to let him get close enough
to whisper. "Write it down", they said, hoping to avoid the offensive odor.
Problem was, the written language hadn't been invented yet. Poof! It was
gone. Neo-lithic oral hygiene, or rather the lack of it, doomed Western
civilizaton to centuries of superficial materialism and spiritual exile.
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