The Metaphysics of Quality
Robert Pirsig grants a rare interview, but doesn’t get on with his interviewer.
So, the question remains. Does a book like Zen, and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance offer a useful philisophy, or not? Pirsig feels about its successor Lila he’s selling a five-dollar bill for two dollar a piece, and still not making a sale. But, is that more than the vain fixed idea of a bestseller writer?
Pirsig defines his central idea like this:
The Metaphysics of Quality, or MOQ, is simply a philosophic answer to the question of what is Quality, or worth, or merit, or value, or betterness or any of the other synonyms for good. There are many possible answers but the one the MOQ gives is that you can understand Quality best if you don’t subordinate it to anything else but instead subordinate everything else to it.
It says there are two basic kinds of Quality, an undefined Quality called Dynamic Quality, and a defined quality called static quality. Static quality is further divided into four evolutionary divisions: inorganic, biological, social and intellectual. Our entire understanding of the world can be organised within this framework. When you do so things fall into place that were poorly defined before, and new things appear that were concealed under previous frameworks of understanding. The MOQ is not intended to deny previous modes of understanding as much as to expand them into a more inclusive picture of what it’s all about.
[x]#1637 fan donderdag 12 januari 2006 @ 23:58:31
