On Sunday 13 April 2008 4:25 PM Matt writes to Dan: Dan said: I think what I was driving at might be more properly understood (from my perception of the problem) as a disconnect rather than a back and forth movement [between philosophy and everyday life] as you're (seemingly) inferring. It is that disconnect that drives much of the internal discourse going on with the narrator in ZMM and the back-and-forth friction within the dialogue between Lila and the Captain. Either a person is as you say unselfconsciously innocent (unaware) of the disconnect (Lila) or else they are aware and yet have nothing to offer as a remedy other than to risk throwing more fuel on the academic fire by intellectualizing everything to death (the Captain). It seems to me that there ought to be (although ought-to-be's are more often than not just pipe-dreams in disguise) a simple way to marry these two conficting arenas. As you yourself say, this is an important difference to note and one that often slips under the carpet, so to speak. But I also believe that we are (most times) unaware of the complexities that underpin so-called simple solutions to anything. Matt: This is a fascinating series because I think it is in some specific ways fundamentally alike to my understanding of Pirsig specifically, but opposed to my understanding of philosophy generally. That you sense a disconnect between philosophy and everyday life, and that this sense is grounded in Pirsig, I understand. I think both of us take this disconnect to be a fundamental pillar to understanding Pirsig (which, I would suggest, is a different understanding of the fundamentals than some others, some of whom I might say take understanding the MoQ to be fundamental--and this produces different appreciations of Pirsig). But in taking this disconnect to be fundamental to understanding Pirsig, we go in two different directions. Roughly: you agree with Pirsig, and I demur on the point. You want, like I think Pirsig does (though I don't think he explicitly talks a lot about this), to marry philosophy and everyday life again, whereas I think to a certain extent philosophy has been _usefully_ disengaged from everyday life, though to another separate extent it can, and needs to be, reapplied. And not only that, but you've also applied this fundamental plank in a revisionist reading of Pirsig's books (I would never have thought to read the relationship of Lila to Phaedrus--that's who you meant by "the Captain" right?--in quite that way, though I see now that it's been hiding behind some of the things I've been wanting to say). The disconnect might be roughly encapsulated like this: why are philosophers sometimes despicable people? Why does studying moral philosophy have no direct, correlatable, _assured_ effect on our moral behavior? Why is knowing the best thing to do different from _doing_ the best thing? Why do we have such a hard time translating knowledge into action? I think this thought, that there is a disconnect between philosophy and everyday life, has a history. Sometimes the disconnect seems to be a priori, there is just a factual, logical distance between knowledge and action, between holding a theory and actualizing a practice. But I think we can trace this history, and I think it will tell us some very interesting things about us. <snip>
Hi Dan and Matt and all, IMO A very interesting conversation. I would like to add my two cents. For the Captain DQ is undefined. Lila sees life as a blast. How can there be an understanding between logic, undefined, and a blast. The logic of Moral philosophers by the tradition of philosophy, will have nothing to do with the undefined. How would anyone know what they were saying. Behavior has two sources, a logic of the defined and a taste for the undefined. Logic connects to the defined ³Culture hands us a set of glasses², mechanical behavior. The defined is subject to definition as ³Culture². A moral philosopher with a taste for the undefined like Socrates drinks the Hemlock. In the conversation between Lila and the Captain, taste and logic were at odds. If there could be a habit of classifying things as Conscious or Mechanical, the undefined would not rest only on taste. Although Socrates probably would still have been forced to drink the hemlock. He wasn¹t very popular. I guess it is not a perfect world. Joe On 4/13/08 4:25 PM, "Matt Kundert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Dan, <snip> > > I don't have a potted version to offer yet because this exact area is the one > I've been digging around in recently. I can say a few things, though: It has > everything to do with the Greeks. It has something to do with a contellation > of distinctions we find in Plato between theory/practice, philosophy/rhetoric, > philosophy/poetry, and philosophy/politics. It has something to do with > freedom and democracy, on tolerance and the minimization of violence. It has > something, oddly enough, to do with the movement from primary oral cultures > (cultures with no conception of the existence of writing) to literate > cultures. > > In sum: I think the distinction between philosophy and everyday life is code > for the distinction between belief and action, and I think the _historically_ > growing separation between the two is a function of the growth of democracy > and tolerance. It is in this sense that I think it is good that we think of > theoretical, philosophical positions as distinct from action. > > Dan, I have a reading suggestion for you: If you have time, you should get > your hands on Pierre Hadot's What Is Ancient Philosophy? It is a tremendous > book that is both extraordinarily readable for the amatuer philosopher (which, > except for Anthony, we are all here; in fact, Pirsig counts, too) and born > from the hand of one of the preeminent Greek scholars alive today (though it > is translated, as he is French). It is just a great history of philosophy > from the pre-Socratics to the Middle Ages, and while on the surface seemingly > pedantic in a bad sense, it is in fact about as interesting a collection of > facts about material conditions and philosophical positions as you can find. > And there is a driving narrative in the background, which is roughly in answer > to "How did philosophy go from a form of life to a theoretical enterprise?" > Hadot's answer is roughly, "When the Christians got hold of philosophy," but I > think he's partially wrong about that, though the question is spo > t on. I think he makes a good case for the sense that philosophy was far > more intimately tied to action for the Greeks than it is for us. And though > we both may disagree about whether we should go back to this, the book does > provide us with a common narrative that we would agree on. > > Matt said: > I'm perfectly comfortable with calling a spade a spade, in this case an > instinctive bridling by what I see as presumption. But because I think Pirsig > has taught us that philosophy flows out of this kind of workaday stuff, and > that philosophy can flow back into it, I sometimes call a spade a heart > because I sometimes get the sense that the other person sees a heart, too. I > can ignore spades, but we are here to talk about hearts, so I often try to > make philosophical hay out of what isn't always normally considered > philosophical materials. I think Pirsig wanted us to be sensitive to that. > > Dan said: > I think so too. And I am sorry if I sounded presumptuous. That wasn't my > intention. > > Matt: > Oh no, no, I was talking about the thing that started all this, what you > called my intellectualizing of the presumption I sensed in Marsha, which was > never, I might add, that great or big 'a deal. I _know_ that Marsha was more > making a suggestion, rather than demanding I meditate or face the consequences > (she's made it many times before to me), and I should apologize to Marsha for > making her needlessly bridle. But the rhetorical forms and patterns we use do > have consequences, both emotional and theoretical, and those are the kinds of > things I study and watch. > > Matt > _________________________________________________________________ > Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. > http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_R > efresh_messenger_video_042008 > 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/ 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/
