Hi Redsky, welcome to the discussion (bedlam)
29 Nov. you wrote:
> In ZMM, Pirsig uses realism to "prove" that Quality exists.
> Regardless or not if you subscribe to that theory, the line of logic
> he uses seems somewhat questionable. In claiming to remove "Quality"
> from the world, he isn't removing Quality per se, but rather removing
> differences between objects. By removing the distinction between
> fine art and a blank wall, he isn't removing a definitive aesthetic
> judgment, but rather our ability to perceive a difference between two
> scenarios.
I guess this is the actual passage
His answer was an old one belonging to a philosophic
school that called itself realism.``A thing exists,'' he said,
``if a world without it can't function normally. If we can
show that a world without Quality functions abnormally,
then we have shown that Quality exists, whether it's
defined or not.'' He thereupon proceeded to subtract
Quality from a description of the world as we know it. The
first casualty from such a subtraction, he said, would be
the fine arts. If you can't distinguish between good and
bad in the arts they disappear. ... and so on
This is ZAMM and fairly early while the Quality debate was a
game Pirsig played with his teacher colleagues. Later - in LILA
after the Reality=Quality postulate - such demonstrations became
superfluous and useless. If quality is removed there is no
existence at all, full stop!. But the (Q=R) is a postulate (taken for
granted by the 'postulant', but dubious to his contemporaries) the
first ever step into a new metaphysics.
IMO Pirsig ought not have bothered with it any more, it can't be
proved, the proof is in the pudding (the MOQ) If it produces a
more coherent world than SOM it's proven fact (and THAT is
does) but Pirsig could not quite let this be and in a letter to
someone - ?? - he used money and the stock marked as proof of
Quality's prominence. Still IMO this is the MOQ from SOM's
premises (where value is a "unassimilated" term) and this will
never jell.
Bo
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