Hi Arlo, > [David to DMB] > It's good to compare ideas. Some ideas are better than others. Pirsig says a > whole lot which James never mentions. > > [Arlo interjects] > I'd like to emphasize that "comparison" is a pretty rudimentary activity and > is, rightfully, very low on the academic trajectory. > In this example, James also says a lot which Pirsig never mentions. The goal > should not be a "victory" but a synthesis, an expansion, an illumination to > expand the scope and meaning of the idea-systems being considered. No > idea-system is (or can be) complete. In academia, there are of course also > trajectories of precision, examining and clarifying one idea-system (usually > in the form of parsing the historical dialogue of which that idea is an > utterance), but these stand in symbiosis with trajectories that bring > multiple utterances together to illuminate a greater patch of darkness than > any one could alone. > > You say that Pirsig has greater explanatory power than James, but I'd propose > that Pirsig + James has greater explanatory power than either one solo. > Reading Dewey, James, Nietzsche, Northrop- and I'd suggest Vygotsky, > Hofstadter, Campbell, Bahktin, Giddens, and other anti-S/O authors (as well > as those working in other, non-text, media) all leads to a greater > illumination than dismissing everyone that does not use Pirsig's chosen > words. One goal of academia is to suggest and encourage this syllabus, say > "Anti-SOM 101". This is why I find it frustrating when people say or imply > that Pirsig's voice should be dissected from the ongoing historical dialogue, > to the point where other authors (as if all other authors are "SOM" by > default) are not only passively but actively dismissed.
I've said that Pirsig's *metaphysics* has greater explanatory power than James'. I don't claim that James doesn't have good ideas of his own. Or indeed that ideas in SOM aren't as good as they always were. Indeed the goal should not be as you say 'victory'… I've written this two posts back.. "If we think in dichotomies as if there is one 'true' explanation of things, as if it's SOM vs MOQ then I can see how you would be drawn to this conclusion. But as we both know, the MOQ isn't anti-SOM. All ideas are just as good as they always were. Including the ideas that are good in SOM." What I do think though is that Pirsig's MOQ, being a metaphysics, goes to the heart of the problem and is thus metaphysically the best starting point there is. SOM is the problem. The problem is one of metaphysics. If you do not explicitly name problem(which James did not) then that is not as good as if you do. I agree, James's likely had a very similar philosophical outlook to Pirsig's but he never *explicitly* outlined a new metaphysics. This is the quality of the MOQ. It is a whole new perspective from which to see things and point to the root cause of many of our modern day philosophical problems. So of course Pirsig + James is better. Pirsig + every other good idea out there is better than just Pirsig. But that's what the MOQ brings. The MOQ brings a better metaphysical perspective from which we can talk about other ideas and determine those which are good and those which are not. James didn't do this. So, it's not just a matter of saying James + Pirsig is better than just Pirsig. The key is how we integrate James + Pirsig… Thanks Arlo, -David. 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
