[DMB]
Well, I don't take "negative" as a reference to the amount or
quantity. It doesn't indicate an absence of the good so much as the
presence of a negative charge.
[Arlo]
Okay, and thanks for the quotes I missed, but I still don't see how
"negative quality" bestows a meaning that "low quality" does not.
Both imply movement from poor quality to higher quality contexts, but
the use of "negative quality" as a phrase really runs counter to my
understanding of how Pirsig uses the term "Quality" in a way that
"low quality" or "poor quality" do not.
In fact, in the quote you provided, he goes back and forth between
"low quality" and an idea of "negative quality" in a way that I
really find cumbersome.
"Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove
will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is
in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his
predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague,
wooly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an
experience." (LILA)
So "low quality" is "negative quality", and I don't see these terms
having meaning or coherence when used in this way. Maybe its just the
mathematician in me that sees "negative" in a different way than "bad".
As I mentioned to John, it would make more sense (to me) to view a
concept of "negative quality" as being that which produced "movement
towards worseness". This is what the concept "negative" or "anti-"
means to me. It is a force in the OPPOSITE direction, not a value
appraisal of a context.
So if Quality = Movement towards Betterness, then Negative Quality
would = Movement towards Worseness, a concept which would have no
experiential reality, according to a MOQ.
Like I said, I realize this is so much academic nitpicking, but I
don't see any situation where using "negative quality" as a synonym
for "low quality" adds any meaning, and instead I'd argue it leads to
internal incoherence.
But I gather its just me.
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