On July 15th Dave Buchanan quoted Ant McWatt:
Dave, I had a another look at this quote (from ZMM) in context and it's because
of Quality's essential MYSTICAL nature that Pirsig distances it from Hegel's
"Absolute Mind". Maybe that's unfair on Hegel but it's Pirsig's "completely
classical, completely rational and completely orderly" understanding of Hegel's
Absolute i.e. that is to say its supposed DEFINABLE nature which is critical
for our purposes here. Otherwise, I wonder what James would make about
Pirsig's comments on Bradley's Absolute - as seen in the Copleston Annotations?
:
"The description of Bradley as an idealist is completely incorrect. Bradley’s
fundamental assertion is that the reality of the world is intellectually
unknowable, and that defines him as a mystic." ..."Bradley has given an
excellent description of what the MOQ calls Dynamic Quality and an excellent
rational justification for its intellectual acceptance."...
dmb said:
Sorry it took me so long to reply, Ant.
I think you're quite right that the difference hinges on Pirsig's "completely
classical, completely rational and completely orderly" understanding of Hegel's
Absolute. It's also easy to see how Bradley could look pretty darn mystical at
certain moments but I would defer to William James on this. He had personal and
philosophical relationship with Bradley (and Royce) for most of his adult
lifetime and there is a sustained attack against that sort of Absolutism
throughout his work. He wanted the scalp of the Absolute he said and he
disliked so much precisely because it was a "completely classical, completely
rational and completely orderly" understanding of the Absolute.
[Here's] the conclusion of James's essay "Absolutism and Empiricism" [1884]:
--------cut--------
"The one fundamental quarrel Empiricism has with Absolutism is over this
repudiation by Absolutism of the personal and aesthetic factor in the
construction of philosophy. That we all of us have feelings, Empiricism feels
quite sure. That they may be as prophetic and anticipatory of truth as anything
else we have, and some of them more so than others, can not possibly be denied.
But what hope is there of squaring and settling opinions unless Absolutism will
hold parley on this common ground; and will admit that all philosophies are
hypotheses, to which all our faculties, emotional as well as logical, help us,
and the truest of which will at the final integration of things be found in
possession of the men whose faculties on the whole had the best divining power?"
Ant McWatt comments:
Dave, I'm sure you're right here. As far as I know, the only text about
Bradley that Pirsig ever read was the "Copleston Annotations" which is nothing
on the scale like the "personal and philosophical relationship with Bradley"
that William James had "for most of his adult lifetime". Again, as I've said
here before, Bradley isn't particularly readable and I'm not rushing back for a
recap of "Appearance & Reality". I'll trust you and William James on this
particular point!
Otherwise, it was interesting to note that James' makes (in his conclusion) a
similar criticism of Hegelianism (i.e. the lack of the emotional and the
aesthetic) that Pirsig was to do concerning rationality 90 years later, in ZMM.
Best wishes,
Ant
.
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