Howdy MOQers:
I've started a new thread but it is a response to John's post about the state
of academic philosophy and Gav's post about religion and spirituality. As you
know, I'm in the process of trying to make a case for philosophical mysticism
within the confines of academic philosophy and so those two issues are all of a
piece for me. This is so closely related to what I'm doing at school that this
post practically constitutes a dress rehearsal for this week's homework
assignment. Basically, we're supposed to write a three page explanation of our
thesis. What is your claim and why does it matter?
Nobody around here will be surprised to learn that my thesis will claim what
Pirsig claims. "Quality is nature", he says, and "there is no spiritual
principle in man that makes knowledge possible. Nature does the whole job."
This "is an atheistic outlook" wherein "no faith is required because there is
no way you can disbelieve that there is such a thing as quality." This sounds
worse than it is, though. This atheistic - even anti-theistic - stance also
forms the basis of a natural mysticism. "Dynamic Quality", or "pure experience"
as James puts it, is the pre-intellectual or pre-conceptual experience is
something every infant knows, it is something which we always already
constantly rely upon in everyday experience AND it the undifferentiated
consciousness of the mystic who's achieved at-one-ment with the universe. This
unitive mystical experience has been known and reported from all times and
places and it is the seed germ of every great religion on earth. Well, I don't
think I'll try to defend that last line, exactly, but Huxley's notion of a
perennial philosophy will definitely get some treatment.
This is the position I've been defending around here for quite some time. I
don't believe it or defend it just because Pirsig said it, of course. I defend
it because I think it's true. I think it's a good way to have depth and meaning
without losing science or rationality. I think it's a way to expand and improve
science and rationality. That's really Pirsig's aim. He was to warm and moisten
the cold, dry voice of reason without letting the religionist "sneak his goods
in through the back door".
It seems to me that Pirsig's position on theism is quite clear and unequivocal.
And yet people are shocked and outraged when I defend that position against
theistic claims. I don't just FEEL that I've been unfairly treated. It's
practically a scientific fact! Whenever I make a case that the MOQ is not
compatible with theism a shit storm of abuse immediately ensues wherein I am a
dick, an asshole, a McCarthyite censor and a closed-minded, knee jerking
arrogant monster up on his high horse. And yet I'm only saying what Pirsig
says. That's unfair. He says, "the selling out of intellectual truth to the
social icons of organized religion is seen by the MOQ as an evil act" and "the
MOQ drops spirit and faith, cold". Yet people wonder why anyone would object
when they try to appropriate Pirsig's metaphysical system into their faith.
That's unfair and incorrect.
John quoted Jacoby:
"The philosophical self-scrutiny .. may be the weakest because American
philosophy has promoted technical expertise that repels critical thinking ...
its fetish of logic and language has barred all but a few who might rethink
philosophy. Philosophy seems the most routineized of the humanities, the least
accessible to change."
dmb says:
The fetish for logic and language that Jacoby is complaining about here refers
to the methods of analytic philosophy and I share his distaste for it. I also
sympathize with his complaints about technical expertise and the problems with
ever narrower specialization. This is part of what I'm working against and
since I'm able to do this within the system, Jacoby's complaints seem quite
well founded and yet they're only true to a certain extent. Analytic philosophy
is still what you have to do at about 80% of the grad schools and the rest are
usually some mix of continental and analytic philosophies, with a just a few
dominated almost entirely by continental schools. The program where I attend
resists analytic philosophy in particular and specialization in general. The
program is interdisciplinary and the degree will be a Master's of Humanities.
It's a school for generalists, not specialists. Pragmatism is neither analytic
nor continental and the one thing all pragmatisms have in common is that
philosophy should make a practical difference in the real world. They're called
meliorists. (meliorism |ˈmēlēəˌrizəm| noun Philosophy - the belief that the
world can be made better by human effort.)
That's the context in which I'll be making a case for Pirsig's natural
mysticism. The program is designed so that you can't get away with taking
classes in a single department. You gotta mix it up. In my case, that meant
taking classes in the religious studies department to supplement the philosophy
of religion course. That meant taking classes that were inherently
interdisciplinary, like the one about Einstein and Picasso. It meant learning
some psychology along with epistemology. And even though there is no end to the
ways one can mix and match, everybody is expected to do some kind of social
critique, shed light on some actual problem. I mean, the this program in
general and pragmatism in particular is not an example of Jacoby's complaints,
they are solutions to the problem he's identified.
It doesn't take a subtle eye to detect the tension between science and religion
in our culture. Is there some kind of philosophy that can help to sort out
their opposing claims? You can't stop a suicide bomber with any kind of
empiricism, of course. But the cops and armies that can stop them should be
taking their orders from people who are capable of being persuaded by reasons
and evidence. And if religious differences can be overcome by showing that they
share a common central core, maybe the heat will get turned down some and fewer
people will die. Maybe it'll be easier to view other religions with tolerance,
be easier to see which religious institutions which foster growth in a healthy
way and which ones breed division and hate. And if it can be shown that this
claim about the central core is empirically based maybe guys like Dawkins will
realize that religion isn't always as childish as he thinks.
In short, I think we need a natural, empirically based mysticism because
science is inhuman and religion is stupid. It's not the science or religion
that bothers me so much as the inhumanity and the stupidity. Given a choice, I
want neither. I think that James and Pirsig give us neither.
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