Hi Andre, Bo, Matt, All, On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:15 PM, Andre Broersen <[email protected]> wrote: > >From Matt: > Steve said to Mati about Bo's understanding the MoQ: > You suppose that metaphysics is a fundamental > intellectual pattern that all other intellectual patterns > depend upon. I don't see it that way. I suppose that > "simply thinking" (intellect) must have preceded "thinking > about thinking" (metaphysics). > > Andre: > Agree with Steve here, as Pirsig says...anyone living in an ordered > universe cannot escape metaphysics. I think the key word here is > 'ordered'.
Steve: I think that this "one cannot escape metaphysics" line may actually be the strongest argument for Bo's interpretation of Pirsig's use of metaphysics, but I don't think it is the best representation of Pirsig's view on the matter. Pirsig in Lila: "Metaphysics is what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. It's a collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical structure of thought. On one of his slips he had copied a definition of it as "that part of philosophy which deals with the nature and structure of reality." It asks such questions as, "Are the objects we perceive real or illusory? Does the external world exist apart from our consciousness of it? Is reality ultimately reducible to a single underlying substance? If so, is it essentially spiritual or material? Is the universe intelligible and orderly or incomprehensible and chaotic?" You might think from this primary status of metaphysics that everyone would take its existence and value for granted, but this is definitely not so. Even though it has been a central part of philosophy since Ancient Greek times it is not a universally approved field of knowledge." Steve: As you can see from the above (and Bo should well note), Pirsig's use of the term metaphysics is different from Bo's. For Bo, a metaphysics is something like a worldview. When he puts the point more strongly Bo even says that metaphysics is reality, but for Pirsig, metaphysics is just one part of philosophy. It is the practice one is engaged in when studying the underlying of structure of thought. It is not the intellectual level itself. It is not universal. It is just one sort of intellectual activity. His description above seems to contradict his claim that metaphysics is inescapable. One need not get into this "is reality real or illusory" business at all. Pirsig also goes on to state the mystic's objection to the whole practice of metaphysics: "Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food." He talks about metaphysics as a degenerate activity that takes one out of the mystical reality. So there is this tension: on the one hand he says one cannot escape metaphysics and on the other that metaphysics is an escape from reality, but we also cannot escape from reality if reality is Quality. All this makes me think that there is a sense of irony about Pirsig's use of the term metaphysics that Bo is taking the wrong bits literally. What do you think? Best, Steve 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/
