Hi Matt:
You say (later) that neither Steve nor Pirsig want to "confront metaphysics head-on," but Steve's saying confronting "metaphysics," as you've construed the discipline, head-on is like confronting a mist head-on: what you should do is blow it off to see the ground.
Nice analogy, Matt. But if fundamental reality is a "mist", quality can't be more than angel dust.
Mr. Pirsig, the philosopher, didn't like the word "spirit" and claimed that his MoQ is "anti-theistic". Referring to Caird's three stages in the development of religion, he says: "The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term 'God' is completely dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic freedom." But he wanted to have it both ways: "The MOQ is an atheistic religious outlook that solves rather than bypasses religious problems. ...The MOQ is not just atheistic in this regard. It is anti-theistic." [Copleston notes]
Instead of trying to turn religion against God with "radical empiricism," Pirsig would have benefited by developing a metaphysical ontology on a non-deistic primary source. His disdain for metaphysics is only partially due to the belief that definitions destroy the concept being defined. He also feels, mistakenly, that empirically unprovable propositions are faith-based: "The MOQ does not rest on faith. In the MOQ faith is very low quality stuff, a willingness to believe falsehoods."
But metaphysical hypotheses do not rest on faith, dogma, or religion. They are reasoned conclusions based on logical deduction and intuitive insight that, when thought through, can lead to a plausible and coherent theory of reality.
After describing Bradley as a "mystic" because he maintained that the reality of the world is intellectually unknowable, Pirsig attempted to reconcile himself with Bradley's idealism in his last annotation:
"A singular difference is that the MOQ says the Absolute is of value, a point Bradley may have thought so obvious it didn't need mentioning. The MOQ says that this value is not a property of the Absolute, it is the Absolute itself, and is a much better name for the Absolute than 'Absolute.' Rhetorically, the word "absolute" conveys nothing except rigidity and permanence and authoritarianism and remoteness. 'Quality,' on the other hand conveys flexibility, impermanence, here-and-now-ness and freedom. And it is a word everyone knows and loves and understands - even butcher shops that take pride in their product. Beyond that the term, 'value,' paves the way for an explanation of evolution that did not occur to Bradley. He apparently avoided discussing the world of appearances except to emphasize the need to transcend it. The MOQ returns to this world of appearances and shows how to understand these appearances in a more constructive way." -- [Copleston: RMP final note]
Regrettably, Pirsig couldn't see that ultimate reality does not reside in this "world of appearances", but that one must "transcend"--another word he didn't like--experiential existence in order to reveal it.
Essentially speaking, Ham 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
