dear pirsigians:
#1:
your painting of me as a needle-necked academic
almost convinced me :)
yet i think this remains a special circumstance
for unlike plato
(someone who we read, even if we don't read his work,
because he so influenced all later philosophers)
and unlike wittenstein
(who admittedly took a more mathematical
and linguistic approach to philosophy)
there remains a particular aspect of philosophy regarding
attempting to construct a universal metaphysic:
only aristotle (representative of greek ontology/dialectic)
descartes (very partially), kant (definately),
and heidegger (sucessfully)
really ever tried
notice i didn't indict prisig for not reading
foucault, derrida, and so-called 'postmoderns'
not to have read someone who did what pirsig did,
the most influencial thinker of the 20th century,
and to seemingly ape many of his conclusions ...
well ... if pirsig didn't know, its ignorance
if pirsig did know, its plagarism
"Most of the serious philosophers had huge gaps in their reading,
mostly because for most mortals there isn't, as Pirsig points out,
enough time to both read everything and do much of your own thinking."
and hiedegger's greatness lies in invoking thought,
propelling it in new directions,
to read his work entails original thought
and if you really think that above statement's true,
why did prisig spend so much time
considering and synthesizing william james?
#2:
heidegger fathered existentialism from a very great distance :)
for instance, he deplored satre's rip-off
'being and nothingness'
and bears little similarity to the existentialist movement
"So, enlighten us."
well heidegger sums up his philosophical project
in his introduction to Being and Time
(that i encourage everyone to read)
(also get Joan Stambaugh's 1996 translation,
and no one else's)
basically heidegger discusses everything pirsig does and more,
just in a broader context with more epiphanies along the way
hmmmm, i've been starting at blank screen for about 30 seconds ...
i don't know really where to start,
and i'm not about to go through all heidegger's concepts
and relate them to pirsig's
that's like trying to fit an elephant in a glass of water
maybe just this one:
heidegger's "To the things themselves!"
=
pirsig's "Good is a noun!"
and maybe i am just a snob :)
:luv,kev
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