Ho hum.
> RICK:
> Elephant, either you misunderstand or (more likely) you simply refuse to
> acknowledge. You seem to be a Pirsig fanatic who cannot admit that his master
> botched an argument (or even worse, deliberately slipped one by you). You are
> too willing to bend the text and read things into it that simply aren't there.
> It's actually sort of funny, you put words into my mouth (ex. you're claim
> that I believe in an 'empirical gravity') and you put words into Pirsig's
> mouth (ex. you're claim that his argument implicitly denies the 'law of
> gravity/gravity itself' dichotomy), while neither of us ever actually wrote
> the thoughts you attribute to us. You attack arguments I never made all the
> while defending a position that's not in Pirsig's text.
>
> As there is no good in arguing with fanatics I think we ought to call it quits
> at this point.
>
> rick
> PS
> Much like yourself I deeply love Pirsig's books and theories. The difference
> between us is that I'm willing to see the problems while you insist on keeping
> your eyes closed. Pirsig is JUST A MAN and like all other men... he gets some
> stuff wrong.
> Thanks for the duel.
ELEPHANT:
You're welcome.
This picture of me as a Prisig Fanatic has got be thinking. Now I always
used to be thought of as a Plato fanatic - though of course I reject the
implicit assumption in this word "fanatic" that anyone who is convinced that
a writer has got to the truth must be off his rocker. You're not the first
person I've heard use that word in that way, not by a long chalk. The word
"fanatic" seems to conjugate ultra-conveiniently: you are a fanatic, he is a
fan, I am an admirer.
Anyway if there was one just philosopher in this world that I think we
should be trying to exert all our effort to understand, it sure as hell
wouldn't be Pirsig. It would be Plato.
In fact one of my main gripes with Pirsig is that I think he comes damm
close to understanding Plato, but heads off in the wrong direction at the
vital moment (like most people I've ever known, he doesn't really 'get' the
theory of forms). This is also a problem I have with american pragmatists
in general. Someone like Dewey, for instance, litters his articles with
misplaced jibes at Plato, while all the time advancing a conception of the
relationship between objects and action which is a straight facsimile of
Plato's thought on Techne and becoming. It's as if these americans have
constantly to convince themselves that they are on to something new, and
this tends to involve a less concerted attempt to understand and honour
their debts to the ancients. Don't misunderstand me - this irreverant
element is also one of the best things about american philosophy.
Actually Pirsig is unusually strong on acknowledging the ancients,
compratively speaking. He's unusual in all sorts of ways. In fact, if I
try to think of the class of 20th Cent philosophers who have attempted to
follow up the links between the thought of James and Plato, it would
contain, well, just one man: RMP. That kind of insight is not to be sniffed
at -I doubt that I would have made the connection without his going before
me on that one.
I'm aware that Pirsig's thought is, in other respects, not wholly an
innovation. He draws on traditions of thought that went on for thousands of
years before him, and which, even in his life time, have drifted off in all
sorts of unexpected directions that he doesn't really keep up with.
Academic philosophers would be amazed, for instance, to think that this guy
doesn't discuss Kripke at all, and in general seems to avoid the switchbacks
of the philosophy of language which have been such a central entertainment
to academics since the time of Frege. Well, academics shmacademics. Pirsig
has his own vision. That's something rare and admirable.
I see that you think we still disagree about whether Pirsig successfully
argues for his conclusions about Gravity. I'm not so sure that we are both
still talking about the same RMP. Essentially you have retreated to making
the uninteresting point that, given the way you choose to define the
beginning and end of Pirsig's argument, that argument doesn't stack up. I
say "uninteresting" because ultimately what we are interested in is Pirsig's
argument, not your attenuated version of it, whatever that might happen to
be. Given that it's only your attenuated version that you claim to be
speaking about, I guess that you can come to just about any conclusion you
want to. Why sould I care?
But I do care don't I? Something to do with a sense of justice and
injustice I suppose. I hate to see my insightful Pirsig in the dock when
it's this other guy, Rick's dumb Pirsig, as commited the crime. Next you
will be saying that I've got my own image of Pirsig. Shocking. What a
coincidence - so has everybody else. Funny old world isn't it?
Hopefully it's the high quality pictures that will triumph in the long run.
I'd offer, finally, that a picture which explains why Pirsisg might be
talking sense is a higher quality picture than one which doesn't. Because
the point of listening to someone is to try and make sense of what they are
saying. My parting thought.
all the best
Elephant
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