[Andre] I haven’t read the hundred odd pages von Dahlem has devoted to ZMM and the MoQ in their entirety (am at page 229) but, reading what she has to say from the perspective of this "communicative foundationalist ethics” which she thinks is perhaps the latest saviour but I sincerely wonder if she understands the MoQ or its implications as I sense that it is beyond this narrow, advocated perspective. All I read is an attack on the intellectual level (which Phaedrus represents) as developed in Pirsig’s MoQ. There appears to be a great psychological/interpersonal thing going on from the S/O perspective and there appears to be little by way of interpersonal relationship understanding from the MoQ perspective.
Am interested to hear your comments/thoughts. Perhaps I completely misunderstand. [Arlo] Like you, I am making my way through this. Bearning in mind that this is NOT a dissertation on Pirsig's philosophy (as is Ant's), I was reading it with less scrutiny, perhaps. So, I've went back and reread the author's introduction and conclusions several times. I don't see the misunderstandings you imply above (can you give specific instances in the text where you read this?). I will say, it seems to me the author generally stays within Pirsig's epistemological narrative, and although she evokes LILA (at length), she maintains the 'ghost' position throughout. That is, her overall concern with the communicative foundation (social-cultural origins) of 'reality'. So, as I read it, she is not interested in reifying the MOQ's levels as much as she is interested in using Pirsig's understanding of the (language)-mediated nature of thought to help argue for the inherent communicative nature of 'ethics'. That is (as I am reading it), her primary term "communicative foundationalist ethics" could be restated along the lines of "social-foundational intellect". Its this border between the social and intellectual that's she's playing around with, and showing that the 'universal ground' for all intellectual activity is social (for her, communicative) activity. And, keep in mind that while we could go into great depth over semiosis and where/how/when it appears (or is ubiquitous) with the MOQ, and this is fertile, interesting ground, but her context here is not that, and I don't think its fair to fault her for that. Whether you want to tease apart her notion of "communicative" from Pirsig's general "social", I think her points are solid in context. That said, one criticism I would make is that she seems to imply a Lacanian-esque view that could, if taken to its extreme, imply something like 'a metaphysics of pure semiosis'. Her way out, here, is to use literary narratives that ground her ideas in a more 'lived' manner than her thesis alone would seem to suggest. But, this is still just a cursory read on my part. To be fair, apart from Habermas, many of the voices she evokes to build this are ones that I am unfamiliar with. So I could be (re)constructing her ideas in ways she did not intend. I was thinking of reaching out to her, not until I feel I am fairly satisfied that I can with her about her thesis intelligently. Or, maybe an informal Q/A via Ant or Horse? Anyways, my initial thoughts... 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
