On to your actual point Ham ... In this concluding piece ... > > But I shall not pursue this line of criticism further, since it is obvious > that Pirsig's own pronouncement of his philosophy as "not just atheistic but > anti-theistic" has been taken to mean that there is no metaphysical reality, > and that whatever is "unknown" cannot be significant because it is > inexperiencable. This of course limits the MoQ to experiential knowledge, > denying the ineffable, and reducing the Oneness of Eastern mysticism to an > amalgam of empirical patterns. (And Marsha couldn't understand why I found > this philosophy nihilistic! ) > I would take exception to all the "has been taken to mean", "cannot be signficant because", "limits" and "reduces" if we were continuing the debate, but since we're not ...
I find this liberating rather than nihilistic. Free to turn away from obsession with the black hole at the core of a metaphysics, free to look out at value in the real world. (This is not a nihilistic denial of some reality existing at the centre - just the pragmatic conclusion that it's not the most important problem to address it.) Interestingly you bring in the "anti-theistic" angle. Dennett conlcudes his "Breaking the Spell" with the idea that proving the existence or nature of God (the first cause in the black hole at the centre of things) on way or another is ultimately uninteresting for the same reason. What is interesting is why people believe, and what they do with their beliefs. Ian Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
