From: storeyd (storeyd@bc.edu)
Date: Mon May 31 2004 - 17:51:16 BST
Hi all,
Just some ideas towards resolving this DQ/SQ debate, re: which has priority,
what is the nature of their inter-relation, etc.
I think we've always gotta be careful about splicing DQ and SQ into
another metaphysical platypi--that is the last thing Pirsig would want anyone
to do; even to talk about them as "things" (or "essences" or "substances") is
to drag them into the metaphysical mud. And I think what Pirsig is getting at
is, at least in the traditional sense, perfectly un-metaphysical. So when we
say "MOQ", what that "M" stands for is--we should always be keeping in mind
and, more importantly, conveying to others whom we are trying to explain the
ideas to--a rather radical notion of metaphysics. What Pirsig IS trying to do
is grapple with and provide an inclusive picture of the nature of the manifest
universe. In the Western philosophical tradition this was called metaphysics,
and was typically done with a ready-made set of logical categories, which
shifted shapes and appearances throughout the centuries. When we get to
Hegel, however, the crystal palace reaches its summit; the center cannot hold,
the lie is out and naked; Nietzsche and Heidegger call the lie, humpty-dumpty
comes tumbling down, and the wake of that implosion is the twentieth century:
the cry was "back to Kant", which is to say, back to a skepticism towards
metaphysics, understood as the science that tries to sketch large,
all-encompassing pictures of reality. But the problem was never trying to map
reality--the problem was the quality of the maps that had been hitherto
produced, the mental-conceptual tools with which those maps were being drawn,
and, most importantly, the mapmakers themselves (what we call the
SOM'ers!)...and, philosophically, what we get from this collapse is a set of
fragmentary, humble, descriptive disciplines, all, in different ways and to
varying degrees, off-shoots of Heidegger: phenomenology and hermeneutics.
These disciplines, which deal with, respecitively, individual and collective
meaning (that is, meaning/consciousness WITHIN and BETWEEN individuals), were
dissociated entirely from the scientific disciplines, which dealt totally with
the outside world, which was certifiably identified with THE NATURE OF
REALITY, which is precisely the territory that the old metaphysics were trying
to map with the cartographical tools of SOM. Critical theory, the other
discipline that spun out of the metaphysical rubble (from Hegel's darkstar
twin Karl Marx), dealt with both outsides AND social interactions, so it has,
as it were, one foot in science, and one foot in philosophy. Again, however,
critical theory could never brook that gulf between the inside and the
outside, because it never believed in insides at all.
My overall point is that the major philosophical schools of the twentieth
century--phenomenology, hermeneutics, and critical theory were all using
broken remnants, rusty tools, conceptual frameworks, etc., passed down from
the metaphysical tradition of the West, yet in almost all cases, they denied
that tradition entirely (this is true as far as ethics goes--even the schools
of emotivism, e.g. G.E. Moore, which basically deny true, metaphysically
grounded morality, presuppose and utilize a moral vocabulary they inherited
from Aristotelian ethics, and basically cut off the branch that they're
sitting on). The disciplins themselves are actually quite modest, and not
very ambitious in their scope.
But where did the drive/desire/impetus for cosmic map-making go? Right
into science. Philosophy retreated into the cave of epistemology, and science
rushed boldly into the metaphysical light. But what is so fascinating is that
the major streams in science, on separate tracks and in their own ways, ran in
to a major problem (especially physics and biology)...the Newtonian and
Darwinian paradigms were inadequate. They couldn't explain the data. The
HUP, Bell's Theorem, and the theory of emergent evolution cast the old static,
essentialist, physical-laws-as-gods paradigm into the wastebin...because the
new scientific theories don't work without consciousness at all levels of
reality...in the end, it's the only way to explain the data. there's nothing
subjective or speculative or wishywashy about it, it's merely the best map we
can make. So what we can do now--and what people like Pirsig are doing--is
take all these different streams of knowledge, and the old metaphysical
traditions, and yoke them under an evolutionary context. And in this context,
dualisms are dyads. DQ and SQ are not properly regarded as things or
entities, because they're not even really two separate referents. they are
distinct signs for the same referent, what we call Quality (of the Tao, elan
vital, the Force, whatever works). IN the Zen tradition, we would just call
this nonduality; the final leap is realizing that nirvana (DQ) and samsara(SQ)
are not-two. Niether one "gives way" to the other, or leaves the other "in
its wake". it's not a matter of hierarchical subordination or prioritization.
SQ is what DQ LOOKS LIKE in any given instantiation, but the terms themselves
are just our way of describing that. Because in this new evolutionary
metaphysics, there are no simple "things" lying around to look at; all
thinghood is thinghood-in-relation. All thinghood is partial. All thinghood
is a pattern of value, what Buddhism calls a "karmic pattern", an inherited,
stable organization of evolutionary baggage. As Pirsig says, Lila is nothing
more and nothing less than a set of patterns of value; nobody's home. Lila
is, quite literally, no-thing (not nothing!), she is no particular thing at
all, you cannot pin her down precisely because you cannot pin evolution down;
you can talk about her, talk to her, study her, kiss her, make love to her, or
hate her, but you cannot possess her with words or deeds, because you can't
possess anything with any absolute certainty. Because DQ is totally beyond
the economy of language, but we can talk about it precisely because language
is MADE OF IT in the first place. So what has Pirsig really created then? He
has created a static pattern of representation for Quality, which we strive to
experience ourselves, communicate to each other, and understand. The MOQ IS
ITSELF a static pattern of value that we are all co-creating/enacting.
"Quality" is yet another name--call them transendental signifiers--for the
divine (tao, god, brahman, etc.), and as long as we always realize that "the
true tao is that which cannot be spoken of"--and also that "the true Tao is
that from which one cannot deviate"--then we're in the clear.
Comments?
-Dave
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