Talk:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

message: :The plot of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance involves a cross-country trip on a motorcycle by the author, his son and two friends. At the beginning of the novel he explicitly states that large portions of the trip were edited for the novel "for the sake of rhetoric". During the trip, however, the main character divulges his collection of material from a philosopher he names Phaedrus. Although Pirsig refers to Phaedrus in the third person, it soon becomes apparent that Phaedrus 'was' Pirsig himself prior to receiving shock treatment for mental illness. As the trip proceeds, the plot splits into three forks: the physical journey, Pirsig's musings on Quality, and the story of Phaedrus. The first is largely narrative, the second philosophical and the third introspective. 
This paragraph tries to do too much.  
#Distinguish between Pirsig and the novel's main character.
#Describe the three forks of the novel
I suggest that any controversy about "how much of himself" went into the novel, be treated separately - and probably further down on the page. Let's find out what the novel is about first. Uncle Ed 17:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Furthermore, the sentence "Yet Pirsig departs from Eastern thinking by arguing that reason and logic are just as important in seeking understanding" uses the term "Eastern thinking" either too broadly or incorrectly.  Eastern thinking in Buddhism uses reason and logic to legitimize their argument, specifically the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle, and also utilizes a mereological analysis (comparing a whole to its parts)-thus, a large section of "Eastern" thinking uses "Western" logic, so this sentence should be edited or the word "eastern" should be changed to be more specific. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 170.140.94.68 (talk) 21:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  clean-up 

message: I don't know who introduced this sentence, but just because you study the Great Authors, doesn't mean a program is a Great Books program.  There are certain teachers who take the approach of trying to interpret the classics in such a way as to find as much truth as possible in them, which is presumably what Phaedrus' opponent, the university department chair was getting at, but just because such an approach employs the Great Books, doesn't make the two curriculums the same.
The Great Books program (which was abandoned long previously to Phaedrus' attendance at the University of Chicago) takes a dialectical approach called Shared Inquiry:  discuss the Great Books, determine the issues involved, weigh the evidence of all sides in light of the participants understanding and experience, and sift through more relative truths in order to find more firmly established truths.
Tellingly, in his novel, Pirsig recites the merits of one of the founder of the Great Books model's approach, Mortimer Adler.  Pirsig goes on by way of criticism, simply to say that he feels Adler took his studies up to a certain point in intellectual history, and did not go beyond that.  Pirsig's implication in claiming that Adler had terminated the scope of his research, is that through Pirsig's own form of inquiry (which is in fact the term employed in the subtitle of his book), he thought he had discovered something new through sifting through his predecessor's ideas in light of his own understanding and experience, and with such an approach, one can hardly regard it as a renunciation of his predecessors in the Great Books tradition.
Perhaps someone else can write a replacement sentence describing Pirsig's relationship to his instructors at the University of Chicago characterizing those instructors in a more accurate manner.  64.154.26.251 02:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pirsig wrote in "ZAMM" that he enrolled in a class at UC taught by the department chair: I believe that dept. chair was Robert M. Hutchins, who was the editor-in-chief of the Great Books of the Western World series. Pirsig eventually became disgusted with Hutchins's Great Books-oriented view and left the class. (It's been a few years since I read "ZAMM," which I was very impressed with when I read it in '76.) Pirsig wrote vividly of his confrontation with the dept. chair, which affected his other studies. If I remember correctly, Pirsig used a scalpel analogy in describing that confrontation.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by BubbleDine (talk • contribs) 04:29, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pirsig sharply criticizes Great Books program? 

message: This website: 
http://www.quantonics.com/
...is quite dense, erudite, and almost unreadable... but Doug Renselle seems to use Pirsig's philosophical interests in its construction (or did initially). If you dont do anything else, just check the list of essays devoted to 'Essence' and 'Pirsig' on the Homepage.
Can we add it to the External Links section? What do you think? Drakonicon 10:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MoQ and SoM and the Quantonics website 

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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Zen motorcycle.jpg

message: The title is an incongruous play on the title of the book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. In its introduction, Pirsig explains that, despite its title, "it should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It's not very factual on motorcycles, either."
I noticed this part immediately... mostly cause its one of the first paragraphs of this page. Does anyone have any citation for the "fact" that "The title is an incongruous play on the title of the book Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel."
If you go to amazon.om or any store that sells a vast array of books, you will notice that there are hundreds of different books titled [i]Zen and the Art of...[/i] Defining this one title to be the basis of which Pirsig decided to copy his title for his book needs to be cited, or omitted.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unitepunx (talk • contribs) 15:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think there's any doubt the title is based on Herrigel - in the A Reader's Guide section of my 2000 edition, he specifically mentions Herrigel's book as one of the ones he read and influenced him. --Gwern  (contribs) 01:59 25 May 2008 (GMT)
I suppose I'll ad my two cents on this. In my Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, first published in 2005, there is a section in the back called "A Conversation with Robert M. Pirsig." In this section, Pirsig is quoted as saying:
The book actually started with the title. John Sutherland was a philosophy major, and in school he took a great interest in Oriental philosophy. In fact, I first met him at a Rockefeller Foundation conference on the Sanskrit term "dharma" for which he was conference secretary. As described in the book, we would ride for a while and stop for a beer from time time where we often discussed philosophic subjects, including Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery. I knew John didn't like motorcycle maintenance and I did, and I thought maybe I should write an essay for him called "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" to help make my point. The idea intrigued me and that's how the book began.
Well I don't know that quoting all that was really necessary, but there you have it. -Brentdeezee (talk) 02:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: First paragraph issue

message: The article currently contains a good analysis of the philosophical aspect of ZAMM, but doesn't mention that the book also has other aspects. It's a travalogue, an investigation into the father/son relationship and an essay on mental illness. —Tobyink  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.120.180 (talk) 08:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-Philosophical Content 

message: The definition "quality is what you want" is an example of ethical emotivism.  I have added that category and have removed some weasel words. Wowest (talk) 03:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ethical emotivism

message: This article is featured on the  Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling  - please help to improve it.      Thruxton (talk) 11:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling 

message: Section on ZATM added at Honda CB77#Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. --Dbratland (talk) 00:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Honda CB77 Super Hawk 

message: Google picks up on something that Pirsig (IIRC) didn't, or didn't state explicitly: this quote from Plato's "Phaedrus":
: As wolves love lambs so lovers love their love
Just a little thought to add to the discussion, I know this isn't directly about the article itself (but I do think it's worth mentioning that the article's treatment of the name "Phaedrus" is a bit lacking). Arided (talk) 19:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phaedrus/Wolf 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Pirsig differentiates between romantic quality and his Quality, which he associates with Tao i.e Zen. Therefore I don't think the statement "..romantic viewpoints, such as Zen,..." is correct in the context of the novel and rather completely misses the point.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.212.107 (talk) 23:38, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zen isn't romanticism 

message: The article on gumption traps was eliminated and parts of it were merged into this page. I see no discussion about that preceding the action. It seems to me such a thing should have been raised in discussion first.Teishin (talk) 15:35, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undiscussed Merger of Gumption Trap