On 14 Apr 2010 at 15:35, Horse wrote:
> As metaphysics is part of the body of philosphical works and needs to be
> seen within that body we also discuss other philosophers work and other
> philosophical areas mainly in relation to Pirsig and the Metaphysics of
> Quality. Sometimes it can get technical and some on this list don't seem
> able to keep up with that so rather than just get on with their own
> ideas they complain about others because they either don't understand it
> or it doesn't happen to fit in with their views! Crazy but true :)
Lest someone get the wrong impression it's well to remember that Pirsig
railed against what he called "philosophology," described as "a
sometimes parasitic growth that likes to think it controls its host by
analyzing and intellectualizing its host's behavior." (Lila, 26)) There's lots
of that sort of parasitic twaddle going on here rather than what Pirsig
hoped for from this site, namely, Dynamic creative philosophy (such as
Bo exemplifies) instead of the "mind-numbing scholarly precision" of
academic philosophers. What Pirsig wanted us to avoid is well described
in the following analogy from Chap. 2 of Lila:
"There's an old analogy to a cup of tea. If you want to drink new tea you
have to get rid of the old tea that's in your cup, otherwise your cup just
overflows and you get a wet mess. Your head is like that cup. It has a
limited capacity and if you want to learn something about the world you
should keep your head empty in order to learn it. It's very easy to spend
your whole life swishing old tea around in your cup thinking it's great stuff
because you've never really tried anything new, because you could never
get it in, because the old stuff prevented its entry because you were so
sure the old stuff was so good, because you never really tried anything
new . . . on and on in an endless circular pattern."
Lots of old tea being swished around here by those who still think it's
great stuff, whether it be from James, Rorty or the Beatles. Hopefully new
blood will bring new ideas.
Regards,
Platt
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