Matt mentioned: I would also add, Steve, that your addition of "worseness" to "betterness" in your description of what Pirsig means by DQ is a conspicuous alteration of what Pirsig says with fair consistency in Lila (despite the SODV passage just discussed, where he says "liking and disliking").
DMB replied: Better and worse are just two sides of the same coin. Matt responded: While it is certainly true that better and worse are two sides of the same coin, I find it difficult to think one is using a single, unified sense of the term denoted by "DQ" if one wants to say both 1) "DQ is reality and therefore both betterness and worseness" and 2) "DQ is the best." To say that all Pirsig was saying about evolution was that the best survive and the worst die, it seems to me, is to fall into the same meaninglessness Pirsig accused Dawinianian tautologists who say survivors survive. Ian then said: I think I agree with all your "logic" Matt, but I don't believe DMB or Steve or anyone is making those those two assertions (1) and (2) - at least not on the same level. Matt: So, it sounds to me like your agreeing that there is _not_ a single, unified sense of the single term "DQ"? I think we need far more explicit clarification and explication of Pirsig's terms--it is the ambiguity in Pirsig's texts (as befits any philosopher with his intellectual ambition) that creates, I would suggest, almost all of the communicative confusion in our discussion forum. (That's not true--by far and wide the biggest stumbling block to discussion is the unconscious background assumption, which we get from how easy it is to buy groceries and the like, that philosophical communication is easy because we all speak the "same language"--or rather, _should_ be easy, which is why communication breaks down.) That might sound rich coming from me, but I've tried to be as open, honest, and explicit as I can in explicating Pirsig's philosophy (qua _his_ philosophy). The biggest difficulty in explicating any philosopher doesn't come from those who disagree with the philosopher, however--it comes from those who identify with the philosopher's philosophy, because the instinct will be to speak in his voice and, quite unconsciously and unknowingly, not notice when your voice has modulated to something different (a problem I can appreciate quite well). I see the irony surrounding this brief discursus on what we might call DMB's "radical empiricism reading of DQ" to be that I came to think some years ago that holding the two senses of DQ above together was untenable and Pirsig must be using two different senses. But I also became convinced, through conversation here over what Pirsig meant, that Pirsig A) did have a unified concept of DQ and B) didn't think it was untenable. (If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure it was Anthony and DMB who were pushing back against my assertions.) In other words, any "different senses of DQ" reading is not strictly an accurate reading of how Pirsig views his philosophy hanging together. I don't know what the answer is--I haven't spent time researching or excavating Pirsig's philosophy in a long time. But I don't know how one put's together 1) DQ as force (from the stove) 2) DQ as the purpose of life (in the alteration of evolution) 3) DQ as better than static patterns (as in the "all things being equal" clause, p. 183) I'm not sure you've exactly appreciated the problem, though, Ian because you said this: "DMB's (simplified-in-context) statement of Darwinian evolution is about as interesting as Pirsig's - ie not very." That is demonstrably _not_ what Pirsig thinks, or at least as I read it in the previous post (which means you might have been more explicit in deviating from what I had said). Pirsig was suggesting that the traditional explication of Darwinian evolution was _lacking_ because of the tautology. Pirsig was offering a more interesting understanding of evolution. But I don't know how the two get put together. The only way radical empiricism (which is (1)) can be a teleology (which is (2)), it seems to me, is if one commits to saying that, when all other things are equal, if one chooses static over Dynamic, then one is misunderstanding reality. And I don't think anyone wants to say that. I'm not trying to get lost in "logic" (which I don't understand pejoratively anyways, and I'm not sure why anyone would want to), nor am I trying to refute any piece of Pirsig's philosophy. I'm simply trying to help understand what Pirsig means. As I see it, understanding the tensions in anyone's philosophy with other pieces of typical cultural understandings (let alone the potential conflicts within a text) simply afford the opportunity for creative articulation. The above is one problem-area, an area that needs careful interpretation, an area that provides the excuse for productive analysis (as opposed to simple quotation). Problems aren't problems--they're opportunities. Perhaps DMB's reading is the accurate one. Or, perhaps, DMB's right _and_ Pirsig sees himself as having a unified concept in DQ with a single, extended sense (which is either tenable or untenable). I'm not sure. If the radical empiricism reading of DQ is accurate, so much the better, since I've been talking like that for a while, though I've not comitted to a self-description as "radical empiricist." (And I apologize to everyone who sees such an assertion on my part as strange, perverse, and disingenuous. I think it simply a problem of communication.) If it's not, I'm not sure why anyone, say DMB, should abandon it if they think it's the way to go. Being inconsistent with Pirsig does no harm to a living philosophical tradition, which is the only point in saying there exists a class of philosophers called "Pirsigian." And if there isn't such a thing, then I don't know what the hell we're all doing here. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 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/
