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Great Discourses: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

August 19, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

A class session from a Great Discourses seminar on Robert Pirsig's novel/memoir/philosophical treatise taught by Adam Rose, featuring Dave Buchanan (reprising his role as Prisig enthusiast from PEL episode 50, plus participants from Berkeley, Seattle, Chicago, Brazil, and Mexico! This is the kind of thing you can take part in if you sign up for a Great Discourses course at  Continue Reading …

Why Substance Matters

February 27, 2015 by David Buchanan 20 Comments

Samuel Johnson's refutation of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialism, which says that matter does not exist, is one of those slightly famous moments in the history of philosophy. As the story goes, Johnson and his friends stood outside a church and complained about "Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter." They did not believe the idea but did not  Continue Reading …

Thoreauly Ponderous

October 24, 2014 by David Buchanan 3 Comments

Our present relationship to technology can hardly be compared to the situation Thoreau faced in 1854, when Walden was first published. American attitudes toward nature began to shift in his lifetime, as steamboats and railroads appeared on the scene. The advent of such penetrating technologies meant that the ordering force of civilization had gained a powerful new advantage in  Continue Reading …

Cavell and Pirsig on Emerson’s Revolution

October 10, 2014 by David Buchanan 5 Comments

About an hour into their discussion the PEL guys (minus Seth) briefly grappled with the meaning of Emerson's revolution. This revolution will be wrought, Emerson thought, by a "domestication of Culture" with a capital "C." Should we take "domestication" to mean some kind of taming, or does it mean that "Culture" should be brought home in some sense? This revolution, Emerson  Continue Reading …

Emersonian America

September 29, 2014 by David Buchanan 2 Comments

If you ever sign up for a class on Pragmatism, there's a good chance  you'll find Emerson on the syllabus. In fact, you're likely to find "The American Scholar" and "Self-Reliance" among the earliest reading assignments. Emerson was a poet and a prophet rather than a philosopher but his vision deeply informed American Pragmatism, particularly the Pragmatism of William James.  Continue Reading …

Zen and the Art of Martin Heidegger?

August 31, 2013 by David Buchanan 40 Comments

The partially examined podcasters raised a series of very difficult questions in their recent discussion of Heidegger, particularly during a ten-minute stretch beginning about one hour and ten minutes into the 80th episode. These questions all seemed to pivot around one central problem: what does it mean to get right with Being? Should we take this as a kind of negative  Continue Reading …

The Truth (and some lies) About Art

August 15, 2013 by David Buchanan 13 Comments

"A bad work of art is an oxymoron," Patrick Doorly says, "like bad skill." He thinks there's no such thing as bad art because the term does not refer to a class of objects or a category of activity. Art simply refers to excellence or to any "high-quality endeavor," a phrase he borrows from Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Doorly's new book, The Truth  Continue Reading …

Robert Pirsig and Montana State University

November 29, 2012 by David Buchanan 3 Comments

Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), will be celebrated at Montana State University in Bozeman on the weekend of December 7th and 8th. On December 15th, during their commencement ceremonies, he will receive an honorary Doctorate from MSU. These events offer some sweet redemption for Pirsig both personally and philosophically. In  Continue Reading …

Don’t sell it to Hollywood

October 15, 2012 by David Buchanan 3 Comments

"I really would like to have the film rights to this book," Robert Redford said to the book's author. "You've got them," Robert Pirsig replied. "I wouldn't have gotten this involved if I hadn't intended to give it to you." As you may have inferred already, Redford is asking for the film rights to Pirsig's autobiographical novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974).  Continue Reading …

Is Philosophy Better Than Art?

October 2, 2012 by David Buchanan 9 Comments

If you believe Plato, then the answer is "yes". If all of philosophy is a footnote to Plato, then the artists have been subordinated to the philosophers for about 25 centuries. According to Plato's Republic, especially the last section, the artists present a danger to society and to your soul. Two of my favorite thinkers disagree with Plato and Socrates on this point. Friedrich  Continue Reading …

Nietzsche, Pragmatism and the Fact-Value Distinction

August 18, 2012 by David Buchanan 6 Comments

[From David Buchanan, frequent blog and Facebook contributor and participant in our ZAMM episode.  See if that doesn't make sense after reading this.] Richard Rorty opened one of his talks by pointing out that as Europeans see it, Pragmatism is just what the Americans could get out of Nietzsche. This joke suggests that there are many similarities but American Pragmatism  Continue Reading …

Philosophical Mavericks: Pirsig, MacIntyre, Solomon, Bergmann

July 17, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

I made the point both on the episode and in a recent post that I thought MacIntyre to be a better model of the outsider philosopher than Pirsig. This is not a point I really want to hammer, as I like Pirsig and I don't relish dissing someone that many of our listeners have a great appreciation for. So let me just clarify what I mean re. this "maverick philosopher" designation.  Continue Reading …

Pirsig as an American Pragmatist

February 22, 2012 by David Buchanan 26 Comments

Philosophology is to philosophy as art history is to painting, Pirsig says. He uses that ridiculous-sounding word to draw a distinction between comparative analysis and original thought, between critical examination and creative production. In the tradition of Emerson's famous 1837 speech, "The American Scholar", Pirsig is calling for creativity and originality. This is not to  Continue Reading …

Lila Notes, Pt. 5: Pirsig, Philosophology, and Crankism

February 20, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 26 Comments

To wrap up my thoughts on this subject: Probably the most interesting part of this Pirsig immersion experience for me has been thinking about his stance as a lone philosopher, rebelling against academia. Like Ayn Rand's, much of Pirsig's attitude towards academia seems to be a direct result of some assholes he had to deal with in school: arrogant professors, sheeplike fellow  Continue Reading …

Lila Notes, Pt. 4: Pirsig Solves All Philosophical Problems in Five Pages

February 18, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 10 Comments

If my notes here have gotten a bit dismissive sounding, it's largely to provide a counterweight to Dave's discipleship. This is not to diss Dave (or Bo or other Pirsig fans posting on our board here), but my approach, and the approach I see in enthusiasts like Katie re. Foucault or Matt Evans did for Plato is yes, to try to figure how out to charitably elaborate and defend the  Continue Reading …

All the Pirsig You Can Eat

February 18, 2012 by David Buchanan 1 Comment

There's enough material floating around on Robert Pirsig to keep you busy for a while no matter what your level of interest might be. If you're in a seriously philosophical mood, there are two at least two Doctoral dissertations, a gidebook,a textbook and a Master's thesis. There are also options if you want to discuss Pirsig's work or even if you're interested in exploring all  Continue Reading …

Pure Experience and Dynamic Quality

February 16, 2012 by David Buchanan 21 Comments

William James' pure experience, the central idea in his radical empiricism,has been subject to misunderstanding and misinterpretation for 100 years. As I take Pirsig's pre-intellectual experience (a.k.a. Quality or Dynamic Quality) to be more or less equivalent to James's pure experience, any confusion would extend to Pirsig's work. Objections that cut against James will make  Continue Reading …

Pirsig Talks About Storms at Sea

February 14, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

Pirsig's second book, Lila, if you hadn't gathered, is about a boat trip, though it seems more a matter of drifting around than a purposeful excursion (though he stops off to do some business in New York, or rather not do some business, as he decides to not allow Hollywood to make a ZAMM movie because it will be inevitably dumbed down beyond recognition). Well, here he is  Continue Reading …

Mark Richardson (via Marketplace of Ideas) on His Book on ZAMM

February 13, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

One of the books I checked out in support of our Pirsig episode was Mark Richardson's Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.I determined pretty quickly that this book was focused on the travelogue aspect of ZAMM and seemed to avoid the philosophy, so I didn't read much of it. However, this interview by Colin Marshall (note also  Continue Reading …

There’s a Madness in Pirsig’s Method

February 7, 2012 by David Buchanan 5 Comments

[Editor's Note: Here's the first full-on blog post by our Pirsig guest Dave Buchanan, though he's been a long-time, productive commenter to our posts here. Oh, and this image is by Allison Moore, snatched from here.] L'esprit de l'escalier or "staircase wit" is a name for the clever reply that comes too late, for the witty comeback that comes to you only after you've left the  Continue Reading …

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