From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 29 2005 - 22:17:56 GMT
Scott, all
I've just read what I sent, the quotes from the Copleston annotations
should have said: [Pirsig comments in square brackets] Sorry for any
confusion.
------------------------------------------------------------
I'm really short on time at the moment but intend to reply to all the
lengthy posts addressed to me. This one, however, is nice and concise
and thus lends itself to a concise response.
Scott said:
The MOQ differs from Kant in that it does not assume that the conceptual
structure is fixed and necessary, but keeps the idea that it is
conceptual structure (static intellectual patterns of value) that cuts
us off from reality (DQ).
Paul:
No, the MOQ states that static patterns block the direct perception of
DQ and are deduced from the primary undifferentiated experience of DQ,
but it does not claim that static patterns aren't real. This seems to be
a common misconception, caused, I think, by the attempt to identify
Pirsig with this and that philosophy.
From the Copleston annotations:
"Reality for Bradley is one. The splintering of reality into finite
things connected by relations belongs to the sphere of appearance.
[Which the MOQ calls "static patterns of value." The word "appearance"
seems to suggest these static patterns are unreal. The MOQ does not make
this suggestion.]
But to say of something that it is appearance is not to deny that it
exists. 'What appears, for that sole reason, most indubitably is; and
there is no possibility of conjuring its being away from it.' Further,
inasmuch as they exist, appearances must be comprised within reality;
they are real appearances.
[Here he comes close to an oxymoron. "Appearance" is a poor word for
reality.]" [Pirsig comments in square brackets]
"As for evil in the sense of pain and suffering, Bradley suggests that
it does not exist, as such, in the infinite act of experience which
constitutes the Absolute. The possibility of this can be verified to
some extent within the field of our own experience, by the way in which
a small pain can be swallowed up, as it were, or neutralized by an
intense pleasure. This suggestion is hardly a source of much consolation
to the finite sufferer; but Bradley is understandably unwilling to
envisage the Absolute as undergoing pain.
[In the MOQ pain is negative biological quality, and is not considered
to be mere "Appearance."]"[Pirsig in square brackets]
Scott said:
The MOQ claim that DQ is "pre-intellectual" is a Kantian pattern.
Paul:
No it isn't, Kant maintains that pre-intellectual reality (which to him
means things-in-themselves which is also not the same as Pirsig) is
something we cannot experience. DQ *is* nothing other than experience.
This is yet another misdirected attempt to pin the MOQ down as Kantian.
Scott:
The main conceptual structure that produces non-real appearances is the
subject/object form.
Paul:
Again, "non-real appearances" is your addition to the MOQ.
Scott said:
Hence the MOQ includes both types of A/R distinction, the Kantian and
the mystical. That is, it advocates a mystical program of putting
intellectual SPOV to sleep in order to experience reality.
Paul:
In order to directly experience Dynamic Quality.
Scott said:
So in this means of getting back into touch with reality, it also
reinforces the Kantian duality between the conceptual and reality. As
James, and most philosophies of mysticism have done since Kant.
Paul:
In the MOQ, the distinction is between conceptualised reality (forms)
and non-conceptualised reality (formlessness).
Regards
Paul
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