On Mar 6, 2011, at 12:00 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > > Marsha to Andre: > > Right, and Buddhism is pragmatic and is based on a radical empiricism too. > My concern is confining the MoQ to the Jamesian tradition. > > Andre replied: > > No such 'confining' intended Marsha. I should also say that in both ZMM and > LILA, Pirsig has referred more to Taoism and (Zen)Buddhism than to the > Jamesian tradition. > > > dmb says: > I don't see why anyone should feel confined. Pirsig read James after ZAMM was > published, prompted by an article in the Harvard Educational review which > claimed Pirsig was a lot like James. In Lila he tells us that he "found fits > and matches that no amount of selective reading could contrive" and after a > few pages of explanation Pirsig says the MOQ is a form of mainstream American > pragmatism. Considering that, I think it's obvious that comparisons with > James would only be helpful and illuminating. > > Pirsig also tells us that his MOQ does nothing for "Quality or the Tao. What > benefited was reason," he says. > Similarly, in her book about James Charlene Seigfried says, "there is no > doubt that the project of reconstructing the task of rational thinking was > central to his life work." > > "Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality, and he was sure he > would find the cause of its not being so back among the ancient Greeks, whose > mythos had endowed our culture with the tendency to do what is 'reasonable' > even when it isn't any good. That was the root of the whole thing right > there. I said a long time ago that he was in pursuit of the ghost of reason. > This is what I meant. Reason and Quality had become separated and in conflict > with each other and Quality had been forced under and reason made supreme > somewhere back then." (ZAMM 358) > > Similarly, discussing the problem James calls "vicious abstractionism", > Seigfried says, "abstractionism had become vicious already with Socrates and > Plato, who deified conceptualization and denigrated the ever-changing flow of > experience, thus forgetting and falsifying the origin of concepts as humanly > constructed extracts from the temporal flux." (William James's Radical > Reconstruction of Philosophy, 379.) > > "Is thought for the sake of life? or is life for the sake of thought?." > (James 1000) > > "I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget > it." (ZAMM 246) > > "The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite > difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants of our life, if > this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one." (James 508) > > As I see it, laying these quotes side by side only adds to the richness and > texture of the idea they commonly discuss. It's a chance to hear the song by > three different singers, if you will, or a chance to shed light on the notion > from three different angles. Surely it can't hurt. > > And how does it make any sense at all to construe the use of quotes as > authoritarianism? What reason is there to construe the use of comparisons as > confining or restricting? What kind of anti-intellectual paranoia motives > such goofiness?
Marsha: As you see, this ignores the fact your offering of bare naked James quotes or the quotes by Seigfried are related to your study and reading of James and not the MoQ. The quote's meaning might be quite obvious within a Jamesian discussion, but needs an explanation relating them to the MoQ for those of us not focusing on the Jamesian tradition. Laying the quotes side by side without explanation may demonstrate your lacking the ability to explain the points you are trying defend or promote, or it may demonstrate intellectual laziness. Save the "anti-intellectual paranoia" crap. It's the type of comment that doesn't impress me. ___ 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
