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A Critical Analysis of Robert Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality

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A Critical Analysis of Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Anthony Michael McWatt November 2004 An Introduction from Robert Pirsig ____________________________________________________________________ Anthony McWatt comes closer than anyone to being a dharma successor of my own work on the Metaphysics of Quality. By ‘dharma’ is meant a duty that transcends one’s own personal self. It was this sense of dharma that made me write Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance over a period of four years when no one, including myself, thought it would ever be published. I think it’s this same sense that has caused Mr. McWatt to study for so many years to produce this clarification and expansion. He has been so painstaking here because he’s not just trying to entertain you or instruct you with philosophic details. His purpose here is to permanently enlarge and improve understanding at the most general levels of philosophic comprehension. The Metaphysics of Quality is a radically different way of understanding the universe but, as McWatt makes it clear in this treatise, its conclusions are not necessarily untrue. Robert Pirsig 2 Abstract ____________________________________________________________________ The purpose of this thesis is to critically evaluate one of the first indigenous forms of Zen Buddhism to appear in the United States: namely Robert Pirsig’s ‘Metaphysics of Quality’ (or ‘MOQ’). In Chapter 1, the anthropological origins of Pirsig’s system is first considered with specific reference to the epistemological and ontological notions of ‘objectivity’. An examination of Strawson’s criticism that Pirsig’s understanding of Cartesian metaphysics is a straw man then follows. After investigating Franz Boas’ positivistic type of anthropology (primarily in reference to the work of Margaret Mead) this chapter then deals with Pirsig’s suggested methodology for this area (namely a sympathetic type of participant observation) and his related claim that the field would be improved by a value based metaphysics such as the MOQ. A critical synopsis of the MOQ is then provided in Chapter 2 commencing with an overview of the system and its philosophical heritage to enable a reader unfamiliar with the MOQ to locate it within traditional academic philosophy. This includes an analysis of Pirsig’s inductive and ‘reductio ad absurdum’ arguments supporting his claim that Quality is the fundamental element of reality, his assertion that Quality and value are synonyms and his argument that it is more coherent to hold the latter as more ontologically fundamental than mind and/or matter. I then turn to the primary components of the MOQ: namely Dynamic Quality and the four static quality levels. Pirsig asserts that the static levels can be placed in an absolute moral hierarchy and employs the notion of cosmological evolution as the basis of this construction. Subsequent to this, I then investigate some objections to this hierarchy and scrutinize Pirsig’s claim that his system improves on James’ notion of pragmatic truth. Finally, in this chapter, a favourable comparison of Pirsig’s system with Spinoza’s monism and post-modernist thought is provided. In Chapter 3, I employ Pirsig’s system in order to deal with the mind-matter problem and its related difficulties (such as ‘Hume’s Principle’, free-will’s relationship to determinism and Chalmers’ ‘hard question’) in reference to the work of Thomas Nagel, F.S.C. Northrop, Whitehead, Hume, Popper and Bertrand Russell. Because the MOQ deals with these problems in a wider metaphysical context than Cartesian orientated systems, I make the case that the MOQ is able to achieve further headway with these metaphysical difficulties. As such, the thesis concludes that Pirsig’s system is largely a positive development for metaphysics though, as a prescriptive moral system, it would benefit from the inclusion of an increased emphasis on compassion (as understood by traditional Buddhism), environmental concerns and other social issues such as racial discrimination. Subsequent to the Epilogue is an appendix examining time in relation to the MOQ - an important metaphysical subject originally overlooked in Pirsig’s texts. 3 Contents ____________________________________________________________________ An Introduction from Robert Pirsig ......................................................................... 2 Abstract ....................................................................................................................... 3 Contents ....................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements & Notes ...................................................................................... 6 Preface ......................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: Why Pirsig devised the MOQ .............................................................. 12 1.0. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 12 1.1. THE NOTION OF OBJECTIVITY IN BOAS’ WORK ............................... 13 1.2. STRAWSON’S CONTENTION THAT SOM IS A STRAW MAN ............. 19 1.3. THEORETICAL PROBLEMS WITH BOAS’ METHODOLOGY ............ 20 1.4. PRACTICAL PROBLEMS WITH BOAS’ METHODOLOGY .................. 26 1.5.0. THE PARTICIPANT OBSERVER APPROACH OF DUSENBERRY ... 30 1.5.1. MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION .......... 34 1.6. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 35 Chapter 2: The Metaphysics of Quality ................................................................. 37 2.0. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 37 2.1.0. THE ‘METAPHYSICS OF QUALITY’ ...................................................... 38 2.1.1. TAOISM & ZEN BUDDHISM ....................................................................... 43 2.1.2. THE MOQ & WILLIAM JAMES ................................................................... 58 2.1.3. NORTHROP’S INFLUENCE ON PIRSIG’S WORK..................................... 60 2.2. PIRSIG’S UNDERSTANDING OF QUALITY ............................................. 61 2.3. PIRSIG’S UNDERSTANDING OF VALUE .................................................. 73 2.4. IDEALISM & REALISM IN REGARD TO THE MOQ .............................. 81 2.5. DYNAMIC QUALITY ...................................................................................... 83 2.6.0. THE DIVISION OF QUALITY INTO THE DYNAMIC & STATIC ...... 86 2.6.1. STATIC QUALITY PATTERNS .................................................................... 88 2.6.2. INTELLECTUAL QUALITY PATTERNS .................................................... 97 2.6.3. SOCIAL QUALITY PATTERNS .................................................................. 102 2.6.4. BIOLOGICAL QUALITY PATTERNS ........................................................ 106 2.6.5. INORGANIC QUALITY PATTERNS .......................................................... 108 2.7.0. COSMOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ............................................................. 110 2.7.1. THE MORAL FRAMEWORK DERIVED FROM EVOLUTION ............... 117 2.8.0. THE MOQ & PRAGMATIC TRUTH ....................................................... 120 2.8.1. UTILISING COSMOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN PRAGMATISM........... 126 2.9. THE MOQ & SPINOZA ................................................................................ 130 2.10. RATIONALITY & ALIENATION ............................................................. 134 2.11. THE MOQ & POST-MODERNISM ........................................................... 140 2.12. CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 143 4 Chapter 3: The metaphysical problems of SOM ................................................. 146 3.0. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 146 3.1. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MIND-MATTER PROBLEM .............. 147 3.2.0. GALILEO & NEWTON .............................................................................. 150 3.2.1. LOCKEAN SPIRIT ........................................................................................ 151 3.3.0. SOM SOLUTIONS TO THE MIND-MATTER PROBLEM .................. 153 3.3.1. THE NEGATION OF PHYSICALISM ......................................................... 154 3.3.2. BEHAVIOURISM & THE MIND-MATTER PROBLEM ........................... 162 3.3.3. IDEALIST & DUALIST SOLUTIONS ......................................................... 163 3.4.0. THE MOQ & THE MIND-MATTER PROBLEM ................................... 166 3.4.1. FREEDOM & DETERMINISM .................................................................... 175 3.4.2. ‘HUME’S PRINCIPLE’ ................................................................................. 178 3.4.3. CAUSATION ................................................................................................. 180 3.4.4. CHALMERS’ ‘HARD QUESTION’ OF CONSCIOUSNESS ..................... 186 3.5. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 190 Epilogue ..................................................................................................................
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