From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 12:14:23 BST
DMB,
DMB said:
Philosophy is supposed to be about life and if your philosophy is about
philosophy then it is not about life.
Matt said:
Are the books we read not part of our lives? ...As I quipped in my paper,
"Why is the experience of a book relegated to a lower position than the
experience of a hot dog?"
dmb said:
OK, now you're just being stubborn. Are you really gonna sit there and
pretend the difference between hunting whales and reading Moby Dick is
meaningless?
Personally, books mean a helluva lot more to me than hot dogs do. Most of
what I think and believe comes from books, but that's not the point.
Matt:
No, that is the point. I'm not trying to pretend there isn't a difference
between whale hunting and Moby Dick, but I am trying to point out that some
people prefer books to hunting whales. And there's no principled, Pirsigian
way for saying they're wrong. Books are part of experience. If Pirsig's
point was to "provide a framework that does not dismiss that kind of
decidedly non-literary experience," then he went too far, and it shows in
his distinction between philosophy and philosophology. Reading a book is an
experience. Whale hunting is an experience. Some people are going to value
one more than the other. There is no principled way to say one is better
than the other because then you've just taken the other extreme.
Stop trying to define philosophy.
Matt said:
So, say what you will that what I write is dead and boring and lifeless...
dmb replies:
OK. But let me remind you that you have a choice here. You can continue to
take my complaints as a personal insult. A better and more accurate choice
would be to take my complaints as an attack on certain ideas that don't
really have much to do with you personally. (I would complain no matter WHO
said it.) Or you can choose to be flattered that I see you and your ideas as
such a threat. I mean, if I had no respect for your talents I probably
wouldn't bother to complain at all.
I mention this because people who feel they are under attack can't hear very
well. It has a way of clouding the mind.
Matt:
Mmmm, no. It's not that I take your complaints as personal insults, its
more that most of the time you write them as personal insults, if not now,
then pretty much most of the time in the past. I'm sick of it. Other
people are, too.
Personally, I think I do just fine hearing the other side, even when they're
insulting me. So, you have a choice, too. You can continue to think I'm
not hearing you (clearly blinded by rage as I am), or you can take me to be
hearing you just fine and responding to your complaints in kind. Though, it
is possible they aren't the responses you're used to.
Matt
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