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For what it's worth, you're not the only one with that reaction. I got onto the book after it was recommended to me as a good way to get an introduction to phil

For what it's worth, you're not the only one with that reaction. I got onto the book after it was recommended to me as a good way to get an introduction to philosophy. Not only was it not, but the philosophical content it did have didn't seem particularly interesting — the long deliberations on quality felt like inconsequential hair-splitting that was unlikely to any revelations of value. Afterwards, I read the Wikipedia analysis on its philosophical themes [1] and felt that it's far too charitable in attributing significant insights to Pirsig compared to the literal contents of the book. My guess is that the novel structure of weaving together a motorcycle trip with inner monologue and personal history combined with a dash of intellectualism was very compelling to a lot of people, and that's why it's taken such an outsized position in popular literature. (I'd love to be proven wrong on this though, so by all means tell me what I missed.) --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance#Philosophical_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_...

novok 7y ago
Disclaimer: I haven't read the book. I think it's also the era it came from. When it was created, it's ideas were not that wide spread and we didn't have the internet, so it was more profound. It's kind of like the matrix and bullet time. If you never saw the matrix and was born after it was made, bullet time might look like a cliche, even though it invented it. When I first saw it, I thought it was fucking bad ass because there was never anything like it. Also there a books out there that are good for beginners, but if your are more well versed in a field, you wouldn't find it that compelling. The beginners books although, are often necessary to get past emotional barriers to an issue.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Your point of watershed books and ideas, particularly ones which more-or-less created the world which came after them, seeming trite in retrospect, can't be emphasized enough. There are landmark moments (Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the invention of blue jeans) which ... are largely just obvious in retrospect, but because they've defined the very frames through which we understand the world. I'm not quite going to claim that ZAMM was all that, though I would argue that it was part of a revolution that could probably be scoped to include the period from the start of WWII to the first oil shocks of the 1970s, that created a world markedly different from that which came before. Put another way, 1938 is probably closer to 1857 than it is to 2019, culturally, socially, intellectually, and philosophically, despite both spans being 81 years. A dictionary definition of the word "pollution" in the 1930s would still have listed the original meaning -- referencing masturbation and of spilling seed on the ground (no, really: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution). The sense of "contamination of the environment" wasn't common until the mid-1950s. Today that's the principle association. Books like Silent Spring had a tremendous impact, and it's hard to see them now as they were when published (1962). ZAMM happened to hit and shape the Zeitgeist of the 1970s in ways that are hard to appreciate now.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Having both read the book and been on a fair bit of a philosophy kick,[1] criticising a philosophy text for hair-splitting is a bit like criticising water for being wet. Hair-splitting is what ... well, if not quite all of it, to bifurcate yet another follicle ... much philosophy is about. Not necessarily of the proverbial angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin variety, but damned close. It's where the, erm, quality is. (You'll know it when you see it.) I've had my own issues with ZAMM, having more to do with some of the thinking striking me as excessively fuzzy. I suspect much of the appeal isn't so much as an authority as a bridge -- connecting people with backgrounds in the mechanical (motocycles), and possibly in computers (Pirsig's own field, other than philosophy), to philosophy proper. And it's got some good bits and observations. ________________________________ Notes: 1. In particular, Peter Adamson's excellent "History of Philsophy Without Any Gaps": https://historyofphilosophy.net https://historyofphilosophy.net Though also other (and direct) sources.
- 0kl 7y ago
  +1 on the “Fuzzy thinking” bit I’d caution reading philosophy as all about hair splitting. Hairs are split because language is the tool and precision is necessary, but splitting hairs is not what it’s _about_. What is it about? That depends on the philosopher. The heavy hitters (Plato, Nietzsche, Kant) often try to answer the oracle’s command to “know thyself,” whim ranging over multiple branches of philosophy, while others focus on anything from language to ethics to aesthetics. (And Nietzsche, for example, does not spend time splitting many hairs at all)
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Yes, about hair splitting was a poor word choice, though hair-splitting remains a very frequent activity in philosophy. Fine gradations in distinction and meaning using the blunt tool of language is difficult. I've been digging into the "what is philosophy about" question on several fronts. The Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu https://plato.stanford.edu) has a pretty good outline, as does the Basics of Philosophy ( https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch.html https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch.html) I've also been partial to digging through various library classifications and subject headings (LCC / LCSH), particularly CLASS B / Subclass BC, generally metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, logic. Another view is that philosophy consists (as a residual) of disciplines which have resisted formalisation under either mathematics (which has laid claim to much of logic), cosmology (now mostly natural sciences), moral philosophy (largely social sciences), and philosophy of mind (now largely a sub-discipline of psychology). What still survives today as philosophy is mostly the "messy bits". And a tremendous amount of religion-adjacent concepts. That's not knocking philosophy, which I'm finding quite useful, but it's a reality of the field.

novok 7y ago

Disclaimer: I haven't read the book. I think it's also the era it came from. When it was created, it's ideas were not that wide spread and we didn't have the internet, so it was more profound. It's kind of like the matrix and bullet time. If you never saw the matrix and was born after it was made, bullet time might look like a cliche, even though it invented it. When I first saw it, I thought it was fucking bad ass because there was never anything like it. Also there a books out there that are good for beginners, but if your are more well versed in a field, you wouldn't find it that compelling. The beginners books although, are often necessary to get past emotional barriers to an issue.

dredmorbius 7y ago
Your point of watershed books and ideas, particularly ones which more-or-less created the world which came after them, seeming trite in retrospect, can't be emphasized enough. There are landmark moments (Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the invention of blue jeans) which ... are largely just obvious in retrospect, but because they've defined the very frames through which we understand the world. I'm not quite going to claim that ZAMM was all that, though I would argue that it was part of a revolution that could probably be scoped to include the period from the start of WWII to the first oil shocks of the 1970s, that created a world markedly different from that which came before. Put another way, 1938 is probably closer to 1857 than it is to 2019, culturally, socially, intellectually, and philosophically, despite both spans being 81 years. A dictionary definition of the word "pollution" in the 1930s would still have listed the original meaning -- referencing masturbation and of spilling seed on the ground (no, really: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution). The sense of "contamination of the environment" wasn't common until the mid-1950s. Today that's the principle association. Books like Silent Spring had a tremendous impact, and it's hard to see them now as they were when published (1962). ZAMM happened to hit and shape the Zeitgeist of the 1970s in ways that are hard to appreciate now.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Having both read the book and been on a fair bit of a philosophy kick,[1] criticising a philosophy text for hair-splitting is a bit like criticising water for being wet. Hair-splitting is what ... well, if not quite all of it, to bifurcate yet another follicle ... much philosophy is about. Not necessarily of the proverbial angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin variety, but damned close. It's where the, erm, quality is. (You'll know it when you see it.) I've had my own issues with ZAMM, having more to do with some of the thinking striking me as excessively fuzzy. I suspect much of the appeal isn't so much as an authority as a bridge -- connecting people with backgrounds in the mechanical (motocycles), and possibly in computers (Pirsig's own field, other than philosophy), to philosophy proper. And it's got some good bits and observations. ________________________________ Notes: 1. In particular, Peter Adamson's excellent "History of Philsophy Without Any Gaps": https://historyofphilosophy.net https://historyofphilosophy.net Though also other (and direct) sources.

0kl 7y ago
+1 on the “Fuzzy thinking” bit I’d caution reading philosophy as all about hair splitting. Hairs are split because language is the tool and precision is necessary, but splitting hairs is not what it’s _about_. What is it about? That depends on the philosopher. The heavy hitters (Plato, Nietzsche, Kant) often try to answer the oracle’s command to “know thyself,” whim ranging over multiple branches of philosophy, while others focus on anything from language to ethics to aesthetics. (And Nietzsche, for example, does not spend time splitting many hairs at all)
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Yes, about hair splitting was a poor word choice, though hair-splitting remains a very frequent activity in philosophy. Fine gradations in distinction and meaning using the blunt tool of language is difficult. I've been digging into the "what is philosophy about" question on several fronts. The Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu https://plato.stanford.edu) has a pretty good outline, as does the Basics of Philosophy ( https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch.html https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch.html) I've also been partial to digging through various library classifications and subject headings (LCC / LCSH), particularly CLASS B / Subclass BC, generally metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, logic. Another view is that philosophy consists (as a residual) of disciplines which have resisted formalisation under either mathematics (which has laid claim to much of logic), cosmology (now mostly natural sciences), moral philosophy (largely social sciences), and philosophy of mind (now largely a sub-discipline of psychology). What still survives today as philosophy is mostly the "messy bits". And a tremendous amount of religion-adjacent concepts. That's not knocking philosophy, which I'm finding quite useful, but it's a reality of the field.