Hi Dave, Matt said: This is where the phrasing of standards gets weird, because it's theoretically paramount for me to say that "what you want to say" doesn't _have_ standards implied, but _are_ implied standards. Weird, but also to my mind exactly parallel to the Pirsigian aphorism "we don't _have_ static patterns, we _are_ static patterns." And to my mind, your second formulation is closer to what I'd prefer to say about amateur philosophy: "you build up a tailor-made set of standards as you go, alongside the actual empirical process." The only minor difference is that I'd say that "building a tailor-made set of standards" _is_ "the actual empirical process."
DMB said: I don't see how that aphorism is relevant here. Maybe that's a separate issue for another post but I think Pirsig is talking about something else entirely, namely the compound, complex, non-Cartesian nature of the self. In any case, let me just set that part of your comments aside. Think about the relationship between "standards" and "the actual empirical process" in terms of the relationship between static quality and Dynamic Quality. Matt: Yeah, that's why I think the aphorism is relevant. Because I want to deny that we should think about the relationship between the standards and the process on that analogy between static patterns and DQ. I'm not sure yet how best to defend this on Pirsigian grounds, but I take it that by saying our non-Cartesian self _is_ static patterns, one is saying that you do not _have_ standards, but _are_ standards. And if this is the case, what is "in process" other than those static patterns/standards (one's "self")? Because if you _have_ the patterns, then you can make an easy distinction between the process and the standards (and thus begin with the process/DQ and end with standards/patterns). But how one makes the distinction doesn't look clear to me if one subscribes to the aphorism. (I'm not sure my slide back to "patterns" from your use of "static quality" makes a difference to this point.) However, on the surface, subscription to the aphorism in this way seems to violate Pirsig's description of Dynamic Quality as the "primary empirical reality." I have no readily available answer for why it might not do so. Though on the other hand, I do not take it that subscription to this version of the aphorism entails the suggestion that one begins with "the standard texts" to produce quality. However, I do take it (contra Pirsig) that one's subscription to his philosophy does _not_ entail either that the standard stuff of the past is "always secondary and subservient," as you put it, to the process of creation. One begins, as an artist, wherever you as the artist thinks it is best to begin to produce quality: _nobody_ dictates to you--not cultural conservatives, nor Pirsig. (In other words, I think Pirsig's practical suggestions to artist-philosophers do not follow directly from his own philosophy as he makes it out to.) A way of putting this in line with the aphorism is to say that one does not _begin_ with the past (static patterns), one _is_ the past (static patterns), therefore still leaving up to you as to where one practically begins in the process of creation. It is the case, as you put it, that one's tools serve one's art, but one starts with tools in one's hands. If one didn't, I would think all that meant was that one hadn't decided what kind of art to produce. (So, the painter begins with a paintbrush and canvas, because if the painter began with a chisel and block of stone, we'd probably say that the painter was actually a sculptor. This doesn't entail, either, that new art forms/activities can't be produced by geniuses beginning as painters and ending by creating the activity of sculpture. It just means that they started somewhere before ending up someplace hopefully new and better.) Matt 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
