Hey All,
Does Pirsig's admonition about issuing a "papal
bull" correlate in some way to Bo's comments
about there being a "one true MOQ"?
This is what I've been thinking about lately, and
I'm going to try to tie up or get back to some
thoughts that for me started with a lament about
Pirsig's level of clarification or articulation about his ideas.
I am not going to repeat Matt's well-written
essay about this ("Pirsig Institutionalized: More
Thoughts on Pirsig and Philosophology" , Matt--
could not find this online doing a quick search
or I'd link it), but I will quote a bit to start.
"In trying to dodge both his sometimes treatment
as a prophet or lunatic, Pirsig not only
authorizes the just my opinion approach, but
nearly necessitates its backgrounding
manifestation. Part of what my arguments above
were trying to make conspicuous is the role of
authority in the professional community.
Authority is granted based on extended
persuasiveness of arguments and
interpretations. For a number of mainly obvious
reasons, Pirsig is at the top of the authority
list in the MD. This isnt because we worship
him as a cult figure, but because weve been
persuaded by the arguments and philosophical
vision offered in his books. That means we will
take much more seriously the things he says
because, in other words, we trust his opinion." (Kundert)
This, to me, underscores an important point that
I've made a few times. As one of those evil
"acerdimics", I see only Pirsig's ideas and the
ideas of people that agree or disagree, extend or
contextualize, tear apart and reconstruct or
challenge or broaden or any number of
"responses". It makes no more sense to me to say
there is "one true MOQ" than it is to say there
is "one true Semiotics" or "one true Nihilism".
But this is NOT supportive of the view that the
"its all just opinion" route is the way Pirsig
himself should go (of course it is, as Matt says
elsewhere in his essay), but in fact I think this
denial of "authority" has had the reverse effect
of keeping the dialogue trapped in speculations
of interpretation. Without a solid foundation of
clarity to build the dialogue from, it can become
mired in speculating just what is the foundation in the first place.
In other words, it implies there IS "one true
MOQ" (THE metaphysics of Quality) of which
Pirsig's ideas constitute only a beginning to.
His reluctance to extend his authority or "issue
a papal bull" implies that this would somehow
impair the evolutionary trajectory of "THE
metaphysics of Quality" (the one true MOQ).
Before his comment about the "papal bull", Pirsig
had written "There already is a metaphysics of
Quality. A subject-object metaphysics is in fact
a metaphysics in which the first division of
Quality - the first slice of undivided experience
is into subjects and objects." (LILA).
How I read this is that Pirsig's ideas constitute
"A metaphysics of Quality", not "THE metaphysics
of Quality", but this is where I think the Bo hang-up begins.
If there is some "one true MOQ", and this is tied
to Pirsig's "authority", then the interpretive
argument (this is what Pirsig "meant") becomes of
paramount importance. It is no longer an
evolutionary dialogue of ideas, but a competition
to claim authoritative legitimacy.
And I think this has been why Ron has been
endlessly frustrated trying to move his dialogue
with Bo away from the interpretive domain and
into the competing "betterness" of differing ideas.
Getting back to the "a/the" distinction, I think
conventionally we've become accustomed to using
"THE metaphysics of Quality" to specifically
refer to Pirsig's ideas (Pirsig himself uses this
convention in his writing). And as Matt (if I
understood him correctly) wrote, this is, of
course, or primary interest to those who respect his ideas.
But when we use "THE metaphysics of Quality" in
this way, does it trap the dialogue in the
interpretative domain by implying "there can be only one"?
In other words, if "THE metaphysics of Quality" =
Pirsig's ideas, then a "papal bull" would seem to
impair discussion, and capturing the
interpretative ground would seem to be the only way to attain legitimacy.
For me, again as one of those evil
"interlictials", I frame this as Pirsig's ideas =
"A metaphysics of Quality" (the foundation for
which we are all here, to be sure), and Bo's
ideas = "A metaphysics of Quality" that is a
critical revision of Pirsig's ideas.
Bo might say "A metaphysics of Quality that holds
the intellectual level to SOM is better than A
metaphysics of Quality that considers SOM to be
one on many intellectual patterns", instead of
"THE metaphysics of Quality holds the intellectual level to SOM".
And in this light there can be no "papal bulls",
because the authority Pirsig writes from informs
specifically HIS metaphysics of Quality, not THE metaphysics of Quality.
Is this wrong? Do others see this instead as a
sort of competition to claim representing "the one true MOQ"?
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