Ant,
Thanks for your opinion. Also, I read somewhere that Buddha not only was a
symbol for a man, but also a symbol for the teaching. And the references to
Buddhism you also included in the MoQ textbook.
Marsha
On Mar 2, 2013, at 11:38 AM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> Ant McWatt said to Mr Thomas & Mr Buchanan:
>
> ... Firstly, though Strawson is largely dismissive of LILA and Pirsig ("like
> some nut hanging out at your local library..."), he did conclude by saying
> that he might be wrong about the MOQ.
>
> Secondly, my own take with Strawson, Dennett, Rorty (RIP) et al is that they
> are/were too involved - at their stages of career - with promoting their own
> philosophical "rides" / "pet projects". If they admitted the MOQ had value
> then - due to the latter's radical differences with Cartesian based Western
> philosophy - they would have had to throw out decades worth of work. I could
> see only a very open minded, intellectually strong character do that. And,
> anyway, I don't think such a change of mind is necessary with these SOM
> dinosaurs as younger academics such as Andrew Sneddon or David Granger have
> their own ideas which will become established in their own time on the
> international "scene".
>
> dmb says:
> That's right. Not only are there two Ph.D. dissertations and two Masters
> theses specifically about Pirsig's work, there are lots of scholars who fully
> appreciate the pragmatism and radical empiricism of William James and John
> Dewey. This basically represents agreement with Pirsig by proxy. Daniel
> Dennett has adopted James's view of free-will, for example. PF Strawson has
> adopted James's view on pan-experientialism. The Dali Lama's former
> translator is the biggest William James fan in the world. David Scott points
> out that the Buddha himself was a pragmatist and a radical empiricist just
> like James. Eugene Taylor, who recently passed away, was a philosopher and an
> historian of psychology at Harvard who brilliantly defended James. And I've
> had conversations with lots of amateur philosophers and students of
> philosophy who are perfectly capable of understanding what the pragmatists
> and radical empiricist are saying. To suggest that nobody can understand is
> just an ignorant thin
g
> to say. Lots of people get it but not around here, oddly.
>
> And there are lots of academic professionals who think Rorty can't rightly be
> called a pragmatist. The pragmatist who supervised my thesis, for example,
> wrote a book saying that Rorty "eviscerates" pragmatism. He comes out the
> analytic school, which is very, very different in substance, style and
> temperament. Ron DiSanto, the co-author of the Guidebook to Zen and the Art
> had no trouble understanding Pirsig, obviously, and he had no trouble
> understanding my Masters thesis either. Patrick Doorly of Oxford University
> is about the publish about the MOQ and art. Michael Sexson and Charlie
> Pinkava, two of newest friends, not only arranged the honorary PhD for Pirsig
> and organized the Chautauqua 2012 at Montana State University, they also
> teach classes on Pirsig's work.
>
> No, the idea that nobody understands Pirsig is demonstrably false. In fact,
> it's a ridiculously ignorant thing to say. You're just blaming everyone else
> for your own confusion. If you want to understand it, then you have to do the
> work. Period. Comprehension is not a divine gift or a raw talent. It takes
> time and effort and even then you only have a chance. Without doing the work,
> either formally or informally, you have no chance.
>
>
> C'mon, Dave. Get real.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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