Ant McWatt said to John Carl Feb 5th 2014: ...Pirsig was making his assessment about F.H. Bradley ONLY from those Copleston notes on Idealism found at:
robertpirsig.org/Copleston.htm It's worth keeping in mind that Pirsig never read Bradley's texts or papers. John Carl then replied to Ant McWatt, Feb 5th 2014: That little section alone would hardly qualify as an unqualified endorsement of Bradley but when taken in the context of most of his commentary in the Annotations I find it significant. Ant McWatt comments: John, Firstly, it's always good to hear that people are using the resources at robertpirsig.org AND using them in an intelligent way. Anyway, I thought I better "jump in" and issue a "caveat" about Pirsig's comments in the Copleston Annotations before anyone got too carried by his comments there i.e. he never read most of the primnary sources that Copleston is referring to. Moreover, it's the only document at robertpirsig.org that he would have re-written or edited as it was originally written just to assist me in my PhD work and was originally not meant for the wider world. [John then quoted Bob Pirsig's lengthy comment about Bradley found at the end of the Copleston annotations: http://robertpirsig.org/Copleston.htm ] ------cut------- John continued: Whether Bradley's metaphysics and the MoQ could be spliced together is still an open question but at least the possibility is not dismissed out of hand as Pirsig does to many of the earlier philosophers portrayed. ---Ant comment cut--- John again: I'm impressed! Even Royce found it heavy going - "The book is itself a very elaborate argumentative structure. One ought not to make light of it by chance quotations. One cannot easily summarize its well-wrought reasonings in a few sentences. To discuss it carefully would have been wholly impossible in a general course of lectures." Stuff like that I'd definitely find a favorite interpreter to do some philosophological work for me. I've got T.L.S Sprigge's James and Bradley on order from Amazon and hope to gain insight from that. Especially since Sprigge claims that both men solve the other's biggest problems. My interest is piqued by the fact that Pirsig spoke highly of both - James extensively of course, and Bradley in passing. Ant concludes: Too true John. As Royce and myself observed, Bradly isn't the easiest reads but I'm still intrigued that Timothy Sprigge (a modern pragmatist based in the UK - a rare bird) related William James and Bradley. This text would almost help someone trying to relate the MOQ with Bradley's metaphysics and could make for a worthwhile Masters or, largely thanks to Bradley's obscure rhetoric, PhD project. Finally, as an aside, Timothy Sprigge nearly became the external examiner for my MOQ PhD. (I can't remember why he didn't in the end but David E. Cooper who did is definitely worth reading too. For instance, he's written one of the few Western Philosophy texts about gardens! For anyone interested in the latter subject, please check out the description of Cooper's "Philosophy of Gardens" book below.) Best wishes, Ant ------------------------------------------------------------------- "A Philosophy of Gardens" by David E. Cooper Why do gardens matter so much and mean so much to people? That is the intriguing question to which David Cooper seeks an answer in this book. Given the enthusiasm for gardens in human civilization ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, it is surprising that the question has been so long neglected by modern philosophy. Now at last there is a philosophy of gardens. Not only is this a fascinating subject in its own right, it also provides a reminder that the subject-matter of aesthetics is broader than the fine arts; that ethics is not just about moral issues but about 'the good life'; and that environmental philosophy should not focus only on 'wilderness' to the exclusion of the humanly shaped environment. David Cooper identifies garden appreciation as a special human phenomenon distinct from both from the appreciation of art and the appreciation of nature. He explores the importance of various 'garden-practices' and shows how not only gardening itself, but activities to which the garden especially lends itself, including social and meditative activities, contribute to the good life. And he distinguishes the many kinds of meanings that gardens may have, from representation of nature to emotional expression, from historical significance to symbolization of a spiritual relationship to the world. Building on the familiar observation that, among human beings' creations, the garden is peculiarly dependent on the co-operation of nature, Cooper argues that the garden matters as an epiphany of an intimate co-dependence between human creative activity in the world and the 'mystery' that allows there to be a world for them at all. A Philosophy of Gardens will open up this subject to students and scholars of aesthetics, ethics, and cultural and environmental studies, and to anyone with a reflective interest in things horticultural. http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Philosophy-Gardens-David-E-Cooper/9780199238880?b=-3&t=-20&Fulldescription-20 . 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
