All due apologies to anyone who wanted to read the two posts, but had trouble because they looked like bad free verse. They are posted here now:
http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2010/05/are-there-bad-questions.html Steve said: I recommended avoiding ever identifying with any philosophical isms because he would make no friends and hand his enemies a line of attack since every ism has its set of counter arguments. Actual books about chess openings are about defenses as well. Despite DMBs view of empirisism, you can actually get *accused* of empiricism as my friend recently was. Likewise, you can be *accused* of being a realist or an idealist or a materialist or an anti-realist or any other sort of proponent of an ism, and defending that ism will always put you on the defensive. Matt: Your recommendation is good. Also mention the concurrent tactic--because having isms foisted on oneself is the price of philosophical dialogue (because if you have a viewpoint, the viewpoint might as well be named and put into philosophical space, a similar bit of wisdom to what Rorty learned about theses)--of denying you know what the other person means by the ism. In the short run, your opponent can always respond with laughter and claim you are an ignoramus, but while laughter is sometimes appropriate in conversation, it isn't an argument, and until (as you well know) the ism is articulated to a reasonable degree you actually have the moral high-ground. Because when it comes down to it, most philosophical (or academic) dialogue is posturing. And the fact of the matter is that if you just assume a definition of the ism, your opponent (as you well know) can always shift back to whatever hidden, assumed definition that they like. Then the two people just talk past each other. Like the say, when you assume, you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me." So it's actually morally upright to exude patience and request a clear articulation of the ism, or whatever, that the two people can then agree on to simultaneously discuss. And in combat, after the request for articulation, if you get one, you are then always left the option of saying, "that ain't me," and moving on if it's a strawman and doesn't look like you (which they usually don't). As a dialectical reply, it is the move of forcing the burden of proof on your opponent. Steve said: One I would add and maybe you'll have some thoughts on is that bit in the Bagini interview where Pirsig says in defense of the uniqueness of his system that is the only one that began with the question "what is Quality?" (why is THAT relevant??) which I guess also relates to his being interested in reading a biuography of James and his speculation in Lila that "maybe the ultimate truth about the world isn't history or sociology but biography." Matt: Did you know that the history as biography bit is from Emerson? If anybody ever wonders why I've begun talking about Romanticism and Emerson so much, think about the relationship between Thoreau and Emerson, and their relationships to ZMM and Lila. The Baginni interview is a curious artifact. If you think about his writing on the analogy of a polygraph, then ZMM and Lila (and to a lesser extent Lila's Child) would register steady, baseline movements from the needle. The Baginni interview makes the needle go crazy. While the two books basically all point in a consistent direction (whatever direction that is), the interview is clearly under agitation and points in all kinds of directions. If the interview was our baseline for Pirsig's philosophy, it would be impossible to read ZMM or Lila. Interestingly, of course, the agitation is dialectical, philosophical conversation, the kind I just finished saying is what the MoQ was created for. I think Pirsig is being eristically obscure when he suggests that no other metaphysics has centered around "What is Quality?", implying by that that the MoQ is superior for it, but he's absolutely right when being pressed by Baginni that alternative lines of reasoning involve "sticking to the subject," which lends a lot of credence to our Rorty-inspired suggestion that Pirsig is rejecting questions and changing the subject. I lay out my own route through that question, and how it determines different answers than SOM, in still my favorite post on Pirsig, "What is Quality?" http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-is-quality.html Matt _________________________________________________________________ The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_3 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/md/archives.html
