Robert M. Pirsig

Robert Maynard Pirsig ( born September 6, 1928 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) is an American author. His first work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974 ) became an international bestseller, after it had been previously rejected by 121 publishers.

Life

Pirsigs parents Maynard and Harriet Marie Pirsig, born Sjobeck. His father taught from 1934 until his retirement in 1970 at the University of Minnesota Law School. There he was dean from 1948 to 1955. Pirsigs mother, Harriet Marie Pirsig ( born Sjobeck ), was Swedish.

Pirsig was in its infancy early as exceptionally intelligent. At 9 years old an IQ of 170 was found with him, at age 14 RM Pirsig studied biochemistry at the University of Minnesota. Despite his intelligence and willingness to learn the University of operation and there prevailing system of teaching prepared the young Pirsig significant problems. The inputs and subordination in the academic hierarchy was hard, and by the study did not meet its substantive expectations, he withdrew increasingly turning into a critical attitude towards his teachers and fellow students. After three years, Pirsig eventually the University was expelled because his regular notes and his lack of sympathy for the study no longer permitted his stay at the university.

After the termination of studies Pirsig traveled for some time ( until 1946 ) backpacking through Montana, joined the army and was sent to Korea. In 1949 he was discharged from the army and began in Minnesota to study philosophy. Pirsig achieved the degree of Bachelor. In 1951 he traveled to Benares (India) and studied oriental philosophy there.

1953-1956 lived Robert M. Pirsig of different activities including, mainly from writing technical manuals and operating instructions. He was with his future wife Nancy Ann James co-author of the scientific literature magazine " The Ivory Tower". 1957 and 1958 he studied journalism for the Master 's degree. He got a job as a teacher of rhetoric and writing at Montana State University - Bozeman in Montana and angry there his colleagues at the Institute with its exposé in which he criticized the epistemological status of ' quality ' on the example of his trade rhetoric and the abolition of academic ranks and completion certificates required, so that science can be a " Church of Reason" again.

In 1960 he moved Pirsig to Chicago to continue to study about epistemology. In 1961 he attended a seminar on the philosophy of knowledge and dialectical methodology of ancient Greece. Even there it came to aggressive confrontations between Pirsig and the lecturers: Pirsig argued that scholastic " rational thought " as a perceptual filter impedes the cognitive ability of humans. In contrast, the teachers were of the opinion that only the scientific dialectic could produce absolute "truths". Pirsig has retold this dispute later " to wait Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in. The conflict escalated, so Pirsig left the university final.

Following this break to Pirsig withdrew further and suffered a nervous breakdown, which culminated in a depersonalization. Due to his mental constitution, it came in the early 1960s to a series of hospitalizations, those with schizophrenia was diagnosed in the course. Also experience this time he finally processed in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Pirsigs condition did not stabilize until the end of the decade.

July 8, 1968 to July 24, 1968 Pirsig undertook along with his son Chris and two friends, John and Silvia Sutherland, a motorcycle trip. The memories of this trip Pirsig processed to wait later to frame story of his work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle. The work was published in 1974 and made its author beyond the borders of his country famous.

Robert M. Pirsig was married from 1954 to 1978 with Nancy Ann James. In 1956, his son Chris, his second son, Theodore was born in 1958. In 1978 he married his second wife and moved to England. Chris was stabbed to death in 1979 on the open road in a raid. 1981 Robert M. Pirsigs daughter Nell was born.

By 1991, Robert M. Pirsig was working on his second book Purple.

Philosophical works

Core of Pirsigs work is the metaphysics of quality. In this non-dualistic metatheory Pirsig rejects the subject-object theory and instead leads the adjectives a static and dynamic. The main benefit of meta-theory of quality lies in its ability to investigate and evaluate moral issues scientifically. It works therefore independent of determinism or positivism and is hierarchically superior to the classical dualistic metaphysics. As a result, the meta-theory can not be investigated dualistic, while the meta-theory of quality is quite able to explain dualistic theories.

Statics and Dynamics

Static structures are committed values, structures that represent an agreement on behaviors, for example, in the social sphere. The purpose of this static commits, the definition of good and evil: this is what some perceive as the " good guys" explains what the preservation of the social structures promotes, while the "evil" existing social structures at risk. Statics and dynamics are therefore indeed directed against each other, but serve the purpose of developing and evolution in that the statics reached stages of evolution against degeneration hedges, and takes from these hedging positions from dynamic tests, creative evade existing conditions and constraints and " life more space and opportunities to gain ". It is the basic principle of the Dynamic to modify existing structures and to vary, which may reveal the usefulness of these variations always later ( variation and selection ). Based on these circumstances Pirsig defines the concept of morality to describe the " philosophy and the humanities so far tried in vain ": morality is therefore the principle, " the life to provide opportunities for development ." This is explained when social structures are perceived as immoral - namely, whenever they rest ringieren development opportunities instead of open.

Evolutionary stages

Pirsig describes four jumps in evolution, which have been preserved as an evolutionary stages. An expectation break in the Metaphysics of Quality is that these stages do not cooperate harmoniously according to Pirsig, but to be more hostile, so that a higher level of evolution is intent on trying to use their subordinate level for their own goals. These evolutionary stages are therefore static structures, but continuously dynamic influences ( organic: mutations; socially: antagonists; mentally: ideas) are corrupted. The result is a tension between keepers and revolutionists. The second characteristic of the stages of evolution is their independence from each other in terms of their structure - the independence exists, therefore, as in an analogy to the hardware and software of a computer, in which a programmer need not know how the hardware side, for example, a mono- flop circuit was built, are set as Ankling and Refräktärzeiten, gate voltages etc.. The programmer used the hardware on the logical relationships in his program to have no knowledge of these physical things must. The user, in turn, used the software without knowledge of the logical relationships of the program. Also no indication of an operand or a logical relationship more at the hardware level was detectable.

Writings

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an essay on values ​​. (Original Title: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: .. An Inquiry into Values ​​New York 1974, ISBN 3-596-22020-3 )
• Lila: or an attempt on morality. ( Original title: Purple: . Inquiry into Morals At 1991, ISBN 3-596-17169-5. )
• Lila 's Child: An Inquiry Into Quality. 2003, ISBN 1-4033-5620-3, ( compilation of an internet discussion group about ' Purple ').