Dave Thomas said:
...I think one of the weakness of Pirsig's ideas is that it can lead people to
believe that for instance emotions (supposedly exclusive to the biological
level) have no effect on reasoning (supposedly exclusive to the intellectual
level) when in the heat of the moment (even a calm contemplative moment) they
all may have some influence on decisions.
dmb says:
Pirsig can lead people to believe that emotions have no effect on reasoning? I
think it's pretty clear that Pirsig meant to lead people to believe exactly the
opposite. The notion that passions and emotions cloud our judgement goes all
the way back to Plato, at least, and we find this in the Modern philosophical
admiration for interested observation and in scientific objectivity but that's
what Pirsig is attacking, NOT promoting. He says it many times and in many ways
but the following quote gets right to the point...
"In the past our common universe of reason has been in the process of escaping,
rejecting the romantic, irrational world of prehistoric man. It's been
necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the passions, the
emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature's
order which was as yet unknown. Now it's time to further an understanding of
nature's order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled
from. The passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man's consciousness,
are a part of nature's order too. The central part." (ZAMM p. 294)
Rah, rah. Three cheers for reading comprehension and textual evidence!
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