As far as I can tell, Marsha is the only one who has a problem with William
James. Apparently, nobody else needs an apology from me for employing James's
as a way to illuminate the MOQ - which is what Pirsig himself does in Lila.
But just for the record let me dispense with her latest straw man (i.e. silly
fabrication) and then I'll add some thoughts of my own about James and my
reasons for using his work. Marsha has accused me of ignoring the following
quote, which isn't true.
"The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic
tradition, although obviously it was not written in a vacuum. My first
awareness that it resembled James' work came from a magazine review long after
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” was published. The Metaphysics of
Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value is not part of any
philosophic tradition that I know of. I have proposed it because it seems to me
that when you look into it carefully it makes more sense than all the other
things the world is supposed to be composed of. One particular strength lies in
its applicability to quantum physics, where substance has been dismissed but
nothing except arcane mathematical formulae has really replaced it."
(RMP, 'A brief summary of the Metaphysics of Quality, October 2005)
And, I suppose, she thinks that this quote cancels out or undoes the quotes
from Lila wherein Pirsig identifies the MOQ as a "continuation of mainstream
American philosophy" and where he shows us that James had used exactly the same
terms as Phaedrus for the basic subdivision of the MOQ.
But actually, I have already addressed this point many times and did so again
in my last few posts too. Apparently, Marsha is too oblivious to have noticed
that. With respect to Pirsig's intentions, this is what I said just yesterday...
"...More than half of my Masters thesis consists in simply showing all the many
ways they are saying the same thing. And that doesn't even include Lila, for
the most part. Pirsig was already a pragmatist and a radical empiricist back in
ZAMM, before he even thought to identify with James or pragmatism. It's really
quite astonishing and illuminating...."
In other words, Pirsig didn't intend to join the pragmatists club or fit
himself into radical empiricism but that's where he landed. Those are the
positions he was asserting even back in ZAMM and he only became aware of this
connection after the fact, when it was pointed out by the reviewer after ZAMM
was published. Then in Lila, we learn that Pirsig looked into it and that's
where he gets explicit about this connection. In other words, there is no
contradiction in saying that Pirsig's work is comparable to James's work and
also saying that Pirsig had not followed pragmatism intentionally. That's what
makes the similarities so astonishing. Pirsig was doing his own thing and it
just so happens that he came to many of the same conclusions. The rejection of
SOM, the distinction between static and dynamic, the pragmatic theory of truth
and the experiential starting point (Pure experience and Dynamic Quality). The
fact that he could land in the same spots as James before he was aware of that
connection and before he was familiar with James is, I think, downright
mind-blowing. If Pirsig had studied and then intended to simply join that club,
the similarities would not be astonishing at all. In that case, we'd rightly
condemn the MOQ as unoriginal and derivative.
And yesterday I dismissed this accusation as one of many straw men she's
fabricated....
"Marsha fabricated many straw men with which to do battle. One of these fake
Daves doesn't want the MOQ to be compared to Buddhism,.. another Dave wants to
limit the MOQ by jamming into some other philosophic tradition, one denies that
Pirsig ever said anything original, and all of them have a hidden and sinister
agenda, etc.. I'll just roll my eyes a dozen times and skip to the last one."
If the quote is taken as a flat-out prohibition against comparing James to the
MOQ or taken as forbidding the use pragmatism and radical empiricism to clarify
the meaning of the MOQ, then you'd have a situation where Pirsig is condemning
his own words and deeds. If we read the quote as Marsha apparently wants to
read it, then we have a situation wherein Pirsig is reversing himself and
otherwise taking back all the things he said in Lila about James's pragmatism
and radical empiricism. Obviously, this is nonsense because that way of reading
it would turn Pirsig into a back-pedler, a fool or even a hypocrite. But if you
read it rightly, there is no problem.
Apparently, Marsha thinks the line, "The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended
to be within any philosophic tradition," means "the MOQ should never be
compared or identified with any philosophic tradition". It doesn't. It can't
mean that unless Pirsig's thinking on this topic is full of contradictions and
reversals. He's simply saying that he has his own ideas and that he only became
aware of those connections to James when it was noticed by somebody else. Once
this was pointed out, however, Pirsig saw it too and he took it as very good
news for the MOQ because James is widely considered to be respectable and
mainstream. This is the text that Marsha cannot reconcile with her
misunderstanding of the 2005 quote (above):
"...But the comparison with James interested him most because it looked like
there might be something to it. It was also very good philosophological news.
James is usually considered a very solid mainstream American philosopher,
whereas Phaedrus' first book had ofter been described as a 'cult' book. ...if
philosophologists were willing to accept the idea that the MOQ is an offshoot
of James' work, then that 'cult' charge was shattered." (Lila 324)
"...But to Phaedrus it seemed that James's generalizations were heading toward
something very similar to the Metaphysics of Quality. ...Everywhere he read it
seemed as though he was seeing fits and matches that no amount of selective
reading could contrive." (Lila 363)
The trick, of course, is to read these pieces of textual evidence in a way that
does NOT construe Pirsig as being at odds with himself, that does not paint
Pirsig as making the kind of contradictory statements that poor, sloppy
thinkers like Marsha makes all the time - like her illogical phrase
"ever-changing static patterns", for example. The trick is to see how all of
these statements fit with each other into a coherent picture. This is exactly
what she's never able to do.
"The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic
tradition,.."
"James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic
subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality." (p. 365)
"The Metaphysics of Quality is a continuation of the mainstream of twentieth
century American philosophy." (p. 366)
I guess Marsha could try to make an intelligible case that one quote cancels
the other but I don't see how that can be done without painting Pirsig as
contradictory and incoherent. In a contest between Pirsig and Marsha, I'm
definitely putting my money on the author and not on the incoherent troll.
As I see it, the connection to mainstream American philosophy is not only
shatters the "cult" reputation of ZAMM and represents good news for the MOQ
politically, it also affords the use of more than a hundred years of
professional scholarship. If it can be shown that Pirsig and James are mostly
saying the same things, coming to the same conclusions independently of each
other (I spent about 60 pages of my thesis showing just that), then we have a
century of scholarship with which to examine the MOQ by proxy.
If I had to rely on the existing academic scholarship on Pirsig, there would be
just three papers to cite instead of tens of thousands of books and papers. I
suppose it's possible to pull that off but, I thought, it would be much better
to have too many sources rather than too few. Plus it made tons of sense to
simply follow-up on the connection that Pirsig himself had already made so
clearly and explicitly. Sneddon followed up on the connection to Whitehead
process philosophy, which is both appropriate and illuminating because Pirsig
and James are both considered to be process philosophers too. Granger's thesis
connects Pirsig with John Dewey. This is also quite appropriate because James,
Pirsig and Dewey are all pragmatists and radical empiricists. No conflict
there. McWatt's dissertation on the MOQ, the world's first, expands upon the
Buddhist elements of the MOQ, among other things. This is not in conflict with
the James connection either, of course, because the original Buddha was himself
a pragmatist and a radical empiricists and it's no coincidence that James has
many fans among the more serious Buddhist scholars. So using James as a basis
of comparison is not only explicitly endorsed by Pirsig, it also fits quite
neatly with what the other scholarly MOQers have done. Nobody is saying that
the MOQ can ONLY be compared to Buddhism or that it's just a recapitulation of
process philosophy or that James is the only one who ever resembled Pirsig.
These various comparisons are not at all mutually exclusive. None of them are
intended to reduce the MOQ to something somebody had already said. None of
these scholars are making comparisons in order to show that Pirsig's work is
derivative or unoriginal. These comparisons are simply meant to shed light on
Pirsig's work. Frankly, I think it's just plain stupid to suggest that their
work is anything but helpful. This work has put the MOQ on the academic map and
Pirsig wants that to happen. He was thrilled when Anthony graduated in 2005. He
was not only willing to write a letter of recommendation to my grad school so
that I might try to help as well, the substance of that was a very flattering
and encouraging. Pirsig's endorsement of Ant and myself on the eve of the MOQ
Study Day at Oxford could not have been more flattering and encouraging. He and
wife sent candy and kudos to us when we went to speak at the recent Chautauqua
at Montana State University in Bozeman. I mean, it's pretty clear to me that
Pirsig wants to be taken seriously by the community of professional academic
philosophers. And comparing one idea to another, one philosopher to another is
just what they do. That's how the game is played.
Why does Marsha constantly condemn intellectuals, academic philosopher and
William James and then act like this is Pirsig's attitude too. It's obviously
not. That's just a reflection of Marsha's anti-intellectualism, resentment,
jealous and the like. It's pure bullshit. And it's merely personal too. She
just can't stand the idea that I could correct her misunderstanding. It's
empty, irrational, ego-driven nonsense. She turned it into a trivial contest of
wills wherein she thinks she can win the argument through sheer repetition, as
if posting her contradictory drivel over and over again will somehow make it
coherent. It won't. Static patterns are static and they're patterned no matter
how many times she uses the phrase "ever-changing static patterns". In a
hundred years, that will still be a stupid thing to say.
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