Does Pirsig's work help us sort out the distinctions between metaphysics and the mystical reality?
"Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is NAMES about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food." Howdy Focs: Thanks for electing the topic. Even though I don't yet know who the moderator is, I hope this post gets the ball rolling for this month's discussion. I don't expect to see any persuasive cases made for answering the question with a 'no' and I doubt if there is anyone left who seriously doubts the mystical nature of Pirsig's metaphysics. Its possible, but I thought the question would help us focus on the heart of the MOQ. If I understand the MOQ, sorting out the differences between philosophical mysticism and the mystic reality to which it refers will very likely give us a better picture of reality - at least as Pirsig painted it. Here's one of the quotes that started my wheels turning... "Phaedrus remembered Hegel had been regarded as a bridge between Western and Oriental philosophy. The Vedanta of the Hindus, the Way of the Taoists, even the Buddha had been described as an absolute monism similar to Hegel's philosophy. Phaedrus doubted at the time, however, whether mystical Ones and metaphysical monisms were introconvertable since mystical Ones follow no rules and metaphysical monisms do. His Quality was a metaphysical entity, not a mystic one. Or was it? What was the difference?" ZAMM (ch 20) What's the difference between a metaphysical monism and a mystical ONE? This month's question was already raised by Pirsig long ago, even if it was a rhetorical question. I think its interesting to note that Pirsig treats Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist ideas as intellectual as Western philosophy. One might be tempted to draw a line between religion and philosophy, a line that Hegal and other have crossed. We see this equation even more fully in LILA, where Zen meditators, Indian payote eaters and "some of the most honored philosophers in history" all "share a common belief"... "Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics: Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language; that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American Church argues that peyote can force-feed a mystic understanding upon those who were normally resistant to it,..." LILA (ch 5) "Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a 'MoQ' is essentially a contradiction in terms." LILA (ch 5) "But the answer to all of this, he thought, was that a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. ...The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born - and to whose birth no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life. That was all he had to say to the mystic objections to a MOQ." LILA (ch 5) Ladies and Gentlemen, start your polluting! Thanks, dmb MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_focus/ MF Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_focus follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/mf/subscribe.html
