[dnquark]

Is there a resource in the vein of the linked review, but that explains the book (and its philosophical content) on a more basic level, for someone with no background in the subject? I was hoping that Pirsig would help me understand philosophy by placing it in a familiar and tangible setting -- that's what the title suggests. I was very disappointed.

Take the idea of Quality, for example. Pirsig talks about it for half the book; this is a concept that drives him insane and is central to his life and to the narrative. I still haven't the foggiest idea of what he is talking about, pages of strange analogies notwithstanding.

To me, this was a book about a troubled intellectual and his grappling with mental illness. About somebody that drives himself insane by obsessing over abstruse concepts arising from human experience. And it's a well-told story that made me think, but also made it very hard to relate to the protagonist simply because I do. not. understand. his intellectual struggle.

[ethbro]

https://www.amazon.com/Sophies-World-History-Philosophy-Clas...

Philosophy has a really strong "begat" narrative that helps if you're interested in learning the bases. E.g. A begat B begat C...

Also, I think one of the difficulties in talking about philosophy is that specialized language in the field has incredible compression efficiency. It's a lot easier to say Kantian than to take 1,000 words to recap his arguments and beliefs.

[shorttime]

But you do! You are saying and itterating exactly how he feels when it comes to quality. You can't define what he's talking about in his book. He can't define quality. They're very similar concepts, not exact, but they provide the same feeling.

How would you define quality?

[dnquark]

I would say that quality is an abstract value judgement that requires context to be meaningful. That's why it escapes precise definition.

Whenever Pirsig talks about quality, it seems that he is heavily overloading the term. What he is really trying to do is develop a set of guiding principles that makes him feel like he understands the world and his role in it. Most people use religion or science for this, but Pirsig explicitly rejects science as a way of discovering the truth (for his definition of truth), and I think he implicitly rejects religion as well. I ended up reading "Quality" as just a label that he attaches to the personal philosophy he develops instead.

[cm2012]

How well something achieves all of its intended functions (including longevity, etc.)