
The Cycle from ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ Comes to Smithsonian - pseudolus
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/cycle-zen-art-and-motorcycle-maintenance-comes-smithsonian-180973836/
======
fit2rule
I first read this book in the early 80's as a teenager - it was handed to me
by a slightly older guru pal, who had indeed been retooling his Norton for a
trip around the country, and with whom I had been hacking on the computers we
found we both had purchased.

He gave it to me in response to one rambanctious outburst or other I'd had,
over the subject of different cultures around different systems we were both
hacking on. I'd said something like "man I hate those mainframe guys" or
something. I'll never forget him looking at me, sagely, across the desk and
saying "man, I've got a book you should read".

I guess he'd sensed some formative intolerance budding in my teenage mind, and
intended to head it off.

Well, this book definitely set me on a path of peace and tranquility, and most
of all, confidence in my own competence in the face of adversity, purely for
the sake of adventure. I devoured the book in a weekend, and he and I became
better friends and hackers for the fact that he dared to suggest I might ought
to improve myself, just a little, through a bit of reading..

I've since seen this book recommended in many similar contexts over the
decades. I believe its one of those books which, if you care enough about it,
will give you a few tools for humility and confidence.

------
cm2012
This book seems to be like an acid trip. Some portion of people come back from
it saying it changed their life by teaching them something vital, which is
hard to explain. Another group says it was kind of a flowery muddle.

I'm in the muddle camp but have read a lot of these threads. Like an acid
trip, I definitely don't think the book has any true, applicable insight to
take from it.

~~~
krelian
Different experiences affect different people differently.

------
intpete
I took a copy with me to USAF Basic Training in 1975, where of course, I
couldn't read it. Found it in the Lackland library. Kept me sane during those
weeks. It still shapes my thinking today. My first bike was a 305 Scrambler,
the off road version of Persig's Honda.

------
sradman
The book "Zen and Now" by Mark Richardson retraces Pirsig's route:

[http://www.zenandnow.org/](http://www.zenandnow.org/)

Many people took Pirsig's quip in the forward about the book not being factual
about motorcycles too literally:

"What follows is based on actual occurrences. Although much has been changed
for rhetorical purposes, it must be regarded in its essence as fact. However,
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."

------
IgorPartola
For some reason I assumed the bike in the book was some sort of older Harley.
Never figured the Honda CB77 would be suitable for 2up travel for such a long
trip. I also had no idea Pirsig actually took that trip. This makes ZAMM so
much more impressive.

~~~
chris_st
I read it for a philosophy class in college. I still remember the moment of
genuine shock when, partly though the book, I closed it and noticed "Non-
Fiction" written on the spine!

------
solson4
Wow, cool coincidence. I’m reading ZAMM right now. Inspired me to write a blog
post about fixing my camp stove while living on the road.
[https://blog.highvoltageclouds.com/index.php/2019/11/24/vans...](https://blog.highvoltageclouds.com/index.php/2019/11/24/vans-
and-the-art-of-camp-stove-maintenance/)

------
newnewpdro
My most appreciated lasting contribution from ZAMM is the term "gumption
trap". Not a month goes by without at least thinking it if not uttered aloud.

I didn't read it until my 20s after moving in with a GF and finding a
paperback copy in her bookshelf having a well-worn spine. I've since decided
any woman with a well-worn copy of ZAMM in her bookshelf is probably a keeper.

------
mrfusion
I read that book when I was 20. Is it worth rereading in middle age? Would I
get more out of it this go round or not really?

~~~
sideshowb
I recently re read it in middle age. I was less confused second time round.
Having more experience with philosophy makes me more confident in my opinion
that large chunks of it are nonsense. It does have some good bits though.
Knowing people with mental health issues those parts certainty resonated more.

~~~
thrav
If you don’t mind me asking, which parts feel like nonsense? I hear this from
people trained in philosophy every so often, but haven’t really seen anyone
lay it out yet. They often just kinda say what you said.

~~~
sideshowb
Ok it wasn't recent enough that I remember clearly! But looking at litcharts
notes I think it was this part:

Torn between whether Quality is a subjective or objective phenomenon, Phaedrus
eventually comes to the epiphany that it is in fact neither. Quality precedes
subjectivity and objectivity—in fact, it is what allows for the separation of
the world into subjective and objective realms in the first place.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh in calling this nonsense but I am quite harsh on
philosophy in general (though I do have time for some of it). Maybe this
epiphany is true for all I know but the text didn't seem to communicate why he
thought so. I remember having many objections the text didn't answer, and
being frustrated at lack of properly defined terms, even making allowance for
his claim that quality is undefinable.

If anyone can justify the claim quoted above I'd be interested to hear it?

~~~
thrav
I’ve been drinking tonight, so I apologize if I fail, but I’m going to do my
best.

Is quality purely subjective? Everyone has their own version? No. There are
levels of quality that we can all agree on, even if we don’t always understand
why. Art. Writing. Photography. You know quality when you see it, but it
defies a true definition. First instinct says it’s subjective, but universally
pleasing forms and displays say otherwise.

They suggest there is such a thing as objective beauty (quality). Faces that
are perfectly symmetrical are objectively more appealing. They are quality.
They invoke a feeling of being drawn in. Accepting. Gravity.

Conversely, there are things that are objectively off-putting. Everyone hates
them. They (almost) universally disgust us. Push us away. Anti-gravity.

Plenty of people will argue I’m wrong and anything Landing in either category
is still subjective. There are people who enjoy having human feces in their
mouth. Seems like that might be right.

Pirsig’s point is that the quality judgement, the thing that makes it possible
for a thing to like or dislike (going all the way to electrons, neutrons, and
protons “liking” and ”disliking” each other) another thing it’s engaged with
is what makes it possible for the thing to begin to define subjects and
objects, period.

What differentiates a subject from an object, if not some deep notion of “I
like this, give me more of this” and “this hurts me, get it away”. That’s what
he calls quality, and what he posits is at the basis of all that matters.

—-alright. I’ve had 3 Pliny’s tonight and I tried. If this is all nonsense,
I’m eager to hear why so I can learn a thing or two and know more than I do
now—-

~~~
sideshowb
Firstly, well done because (if others accept your take) you've just explained
the crux of ZAMM to me better than the book did. I never got that last line of
yours from the book. Have another beer :)

I still don't think it's right, though. Firstly we have a problem with
defining subjective/objective. For example a decent hammer is a high quality
tool for hammering in nails, but a low quality tool for screwing in screws.
Does that make the quality of a hammer subjective (depending on the context in
which it is used) or objective (independent of human perception provided we
can accept an objective goal of joining two pieces of wood) or subjective
again (because it takes a human to decide on that goal)? I find it near
meaningless to begin this debate without agreeing on terms.

Second, going all the way down to electrons, protons etc - this liking and
disliking seems to be confusing different types of process altogether:
computing/selecting from possible alternatives vs simple electromagnetism.
That's not to deny that our brains might be powered by simple electromagnetism
under the hood. But if you define "liking" for an electron as "moving towards
a positive charge (momentum and other forces/quantum effects permitting)" and
"disliking" as "moving towards a negative charge (similarly qualified)" then
the electron will _never_ experience the sensation of "dislike", while we as
humans often do, so the parallel seems inappropriate.

As to whether quality is objective/subjective what's wrong with the
explanation that individual tastes vary but there is usually some correlation
between them due to the evolutionary forces that shape both us and our memes?

As to whether like/dislike defines subject/object what do you make of the
person who dislikes their own body and would rather inhabit a different one?

As to whether quality is essential for definition of subject/object: I'm not
convinced it is at all. Sure "quality" might break a crude model of
subjectivity/objectivity (which can then be refined as above) but just because
something broke our model doesn't make that thing essential to defining the
model. I can break some form of logic (propositional? first order? I forget)
by asking you to evaluate the truth of "this statement is false" but that
didn't mean we needed that statement to define the logic in the first place.

And as to whether quality is undefinable: just because we repeatedly fail to
define it doesn't mean it can't be.

Not wanting to be argumentative btw. I'm genuinely interested to get to the
bottom of this if you have further thoughts.

~~~
thrav
No offense taken at all. You may not have gotten it, because it probably isn’t
explained fully (or even realized fully by him) until his second book, which I
like much more. Whereas ZMM is an inquiry into values, Lila is an inquiry into
morals, and is where he lays out his metaphysics of quality. Plenty of people
think it’s garbage, but I’ve yet to see someone take it apart, which is why I
asked the original question of you.

You used the phrase, evolutionary forces in your explanation. To him, that’s
quality.

The force that compelled the amoeba to move towards nutrients and away from
danger is quality.

In Lila, written for something like 15 years after ZMM was published, he
posits that quality can be broken into 2 essential forms: Dynamic quality and
static quality. They basically correlate to liberalism and conservatism. In
his mind, both are essential for evolutionary progress and are the source of
all that is.

Dynamic quality is often random, unconventional, and disruptive. It’s some
wild mutation that ends up being a positive, or some rogue actor who ends up
birthing a movement for good. It is essential to progress beyond what is
currently.

Static quality is all that is good currently. It’s the breadth of learned
knowledge. It’s the safety of what’s gotten us this far. Abandoning it
entirely is a recipe for chaos and potentially great loss.

In his estimation, the combination of these 2 forms of quality is what makes
evolution work, and he believes humans are not the highest expression of
evolution.

He outlines levels of the world that are conquered in the name of progress and
that each one supersedes the one before it.

The first level is non-living matter. It’s just there, not doing much. The
second is biological. It bends the non-living stuff to its will.

The next level is social. It uses the living stuff for its benefit. The good
of the whole outweighs the good of the individuals. People are to the society
like food is to people. They power it, create it, become it, and it carries on
after they’re gone.

He uses the example of New York, consuming human productivity for its own
benefit. Feasting on humans to grow bigger and stronger, and shitting them out
the other side.

The final level, as he sees it, is intellectual. Ideas supersede the
societies. They bend them to their will. The idea that slaves should be free
is strong enough to risk destruction of the society.

His ethics is based on these levels. At the biological level, sex is always
quality. At the societal level, the wrong sex can threaten the community /
society and becomes more nuanced, only quality sometimes. Society > biology.
At the intellectual level, slavery is bad, even though it results in strong
communities and cities and has many benefits.

My plane is taking off, so I finished that off poorly, but read Lila is that’s
at all intriguing. It’s my favorite book.

~~~
sideshowb
(Aside: taking the split between static/dynamic as fundamental is at least as
old as Hinduism and I do kinda like that perspective).

Ok, so what stands out to me is at each of those levels you can define an
individual of sorts (proton, phenotype, society, meme) with goals
(electromagnetic, genetic survival, ??, memetic survival). So I get what you
mean that definition of goals (quality) goes hand in hand with definition of
individual and therefore subject/object _in this restricted model of reality_.

But that's what this model seems to be to me, more of an ELI5 explanation than
the grown up one. "the proton wants to move towards the electron, the rabbit
wants to have babies, etc" is a simplified model that leverages our brain's
skill at modelling motivations of other animals but falls prey to our tendency
to see such motivation where it doesn't exist. Once you start testing this
model by making predictions, it doesn't work because the levels work rather
differently under the hood. Try using evolutionary principles at the social
level to predict the growth of New York for example, and you are going to
mispredict because New York isn't going to reproduce in any meaningful sense,
it will either grow or die (there's a vague parallel to group selection
controversies here but not that relevant). People (like the inhabitants of New
York) and ideas (like ideas on how cities should be run), conversely, can be
said to evolve due to mutation and reproduction and if you predict the growth
of New York based on evolutionary influences from _those_ levels you are more
likely to succeed (alternatively you could take some sort of
network/complexity approach but whatever works it isn't going to be city level
evolution * ).

But let's not get hung up on evolution, it's just an example of how the levels
differ so much in their details that the only correct overarching definition
of quality for each level would appear to be "the thing the thing is going to
do anyway", a definition so general as to be useless * . From that light the
good student essay was the thing Phaedrus wanted (the standard he was trying
to achieve in his students) but if we want theories to make useful predictions
we need to predict when this will and won't happen (e.g. because the alcohol
molecule's notion of 'quality' interferes with the student's brain's efforts
to reproduce Phaedrus' notion thereof) which is where the model breaks down.
Or maybe this theory isn't supposed to help predict anything but is supposed
to help grade essays? but "what I wanted to see" is not a useful definition of
quality for the student either.

*edit: unless it's morphic resonance a la Rupert Sheldrake, a theory so general you can state it as "whatever happens becomes more likely to happen again". But while at first sight that notion is strongly related to quality as defined by Pirsig, I think that may be an illusion caused by them both being super-general abstractions. MR is subtly different and although not accepted by scientific consensus that difference at least allows it to make testable predictions.

Thank you for helping me think through this stuff more (as my edit history
would show!)

~~~
thrav
He studied at a Hindu University, so that makes sense.

Yeah, there is a lot that you’re saying that’s a perfectly valid objection to
my oversimplification, and maybe to his whole thing, but I’ll be the first to
admit that it’s easy to take it apart the way I’ve relayed it. I put plenty of
words in his mouth in my previous comment.

As mentioned, he spent 15 years writing the book because he wanted it to say
it the right way.

There was a whole forum after it came out where a bunch of philosophy students
would argue about his theories and what he meant and what that means and what
falls into which category, and every once in a while he would pop in and say,
“I see what you’re thinking, but no, that’s not what I meant at all, it’s
actually this.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on his own words though. You obviously know far
more than I do about Philosophy.

Wikipedia of Metaphysics of Quality is probably a better cliff notes than me:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirsig%27s_Metaphysics_of_Qu...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirsig%27s_Metaphysics_of_Quality)

~~~
sideshowb
You sell yourself short - I didn't see anything on the wiki page that
enlightened me more than your summary did.

Maybe I should track down that forum, but I suspect the experience would be
akin to more than one experience I've had chatting with philosophers (one of
which I am not, though I guess I've been exposed to a bit through one channel
or another) where I try to draw something useful out of the discussion only to
be told this isn't what it's about. "It's brave of you to try and summarize"
were the words of one colleague giving a seminar at the time! Maybe I just
don't get it, or maybe it's they who don't get it, but it seems beyond me to
figure out which. Maybe this is where I get a bit middle aged and intolerant
and decide that further effort on that part isn't a good use of my time, and
if a philosophy isn't useful for something (including the valid use of just
being an aesthetically pleasing thing to consider) then I don't have a lot of
time for it. In terms of aesthetics you have helped me to see some more in
ZAMM than before, though.

On my first reading of ZAMM the real epiphany moment was where he described
the workings of a motorcycle then said "... one thing classical types won't
notice about this is that it's really, really, boring" or words to that
effect. True. I identify strongly with the classical worldview but also with
all the "groovy" phenomena on the other side of the divide which I think are
perfectly explainable classically it's just that most people fail to do so.

If you haven't come across Sheldrake before you may enjoy The New Science of
Life. I may not endorse his conclusions but can heartily recommend his
exploration of ideas.

~~~
thrav
I would agree that I haven’t found Pirsig’s work to be the most life changing.
It’s much more life affirming, and ‘hey, that’s what I’ve been thinking, but
not quite putting my finger on!’

The same could be said for my recent dive into David Foster Wallace.
Absolutely loving reading his writing, but more affirmation of my own thoughts
than expansion. I also realize this is probably because I’m reading both
decades after publication, which means time has caught up to their ahead of
the curve ideas.

The most I’ve gotten out of a book, in terms of altering the way I think about
the world and life, is Simone De Beauvoir and the Ethics of Ambiguity. Man, I
love me some Simone.

------
tekstar
ITT: people who read the first chapter of the book commenting on how it s
about motorcycle repair vs people who read the whole book telling them that
it's not.

(It took me three tries to get past the first tangental monologue chapter, and
I was deeply rewarded by doing so. It's a great book but not what you may
expect based on the title or first chapters)

~~~
sharkweek
And then there are people like me who read it but watched about 75% of the
content whoosh over our heads.

If someone offered me one million dollars to clearly explain the book to them
right now, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

~~~
StavrosK
I'm the same way, I read it and my impression was "it's about quality or
something". Maybe I should read it again.

~~~
sharkweek
Hah, exactly what I told a friend who asked about it when he saw it in my
living room when I was reading it.

------
mauvehaus
I know we don't love reddit here, but it's the first online source I could
find for Edward Abbey's hilarious review of ZAMM:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/CalamariRaceTeam/comments/5bij42/ze...](https://www.reddit.com/r/CalamariRaceTeam/comments/5bij42/zen_and_the_art_of_motorcycle_maintenance_a_review/)

Yeah, I know, allegedly written by "Dave Harleyson". Count me among the
skeptical.

~~~
70rd
Why do we dislike Reddit?

~~~
drunken-serval
Because Reddit doesn’t follow Hacker News guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

I think this one is the biggest difference:

“Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and
substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.”

------
wallace_f
>industrialization can be off-putting to those who would pursue a life of
aesthetic and artistic beauty. He advocates for balance, suggesting that one
can both explore the metaphysical qualities of life and stay connected to the
more grounded functions of the machines we build. The book explores the
concept of “quality” as a measure of a good life.

AFAIK most people are just after money, instant gratification and egoism(1).

1 -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics)
Most research on happiness suggests it's linked to socioeconomic status
relative to your peers, not absolute socioeconomic status.

------
callesgg
This was a book that changed how I view the world on a fundamental level.

~~~
strathmeyer
I guess those of us who didn't feel a need to finish the book already had a
correct worldview?

~~~
callesgg
I don’t know what it is to have a correct world view. My view is that best way
to think about world view is to accept that the world is complex and we can’t
understand it for what it really is. Only as simplified models.

The fact that you are asking the question could be interpreted as the
opposite. I guess.

------
readingnews
Sometimes I wonder... should all the AI builders of today read this book?

~~~
nickbauman
ZAMM makes more sense for the people on the "right to repair" train.

~~~
BiteCode_dev
ZAMM has little to do with fixing motorcycles so I'm not sure it would be that
relevant.

~~~
IgorPartola
And yet it has some incredibly helpful bits on actual motorcycle repair (and
putting together grills :)).

~~~
BiteCode_dev
In the same way Star Wars has incredible bits about light saber battling.

~~~
IgorPartola
Not at all. The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole
project and how you then need to pause and think through all the options
before you before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a
lot of people. The bit about really understanding how the thing works before
attempting to repair it is great. And the part about the grill assembly manual
makes a lot of sense and is very real world applicable. It’s true that this
book won’t teach you how to rebuild a carburetor or adjust valve clearances,
but it will give you a good outlook on performing those tasks.

~~~
BiteCode_dev
> The bit about how when you strip a bolt it becomes your whole project and
> how you then need to pause and think through all the options before you
> before proceeding I am sure saved countless hours and dollars to a lot of
> people.

The bolt here is just used as an analogy for how to address problems in life,
balance importance you give to micro vs macro, the beauty and danger that
scales up and down in anything, etc.

Sure, it's a smart one, actually useful if taken literally as well, because
the writer is very talented.

> The bit about really understanding how the thing works before attempting to
> repair it is great.

Again, another analogy. The whole book is teaching you how to think. And then
go beyond thinking, as an art of living.

Every page is a personal, human lesson. You can stop at the mechanical aspect
of it, but it is missing why this is a fantastic writing. It's giving profound
advises using a simple, down to earth, vocabulary.

I could have done so with any other gimmick. Just like star wars could have
replaced light sabers with something else. It just became an iconic symbol
because it's so obviously recognizable and easy to grab.

But of course, they are also good because they chose such an symbology to make
it easy to refer to.

You know where you were in class, and the teachers analyzed a book and you
though in your head, BS! ZAMM is an exception to that. It is, really, a
conscious and deep work of teaching that goes several levels down.

~~~
IgorPartola
Yes they are all analogies and metaphors, I don’t dispute that. My point is
that even so they are very applicable to the kind of problem solving you might
do when actually maintaining a motorcycle. It didn’t teach me to fix stuck
bolts, I learned that later. But everything I do with any kind of construction
or maintenance is in fact influenced by the philosophy of this book. By
contrast, I rarely think of Star Wars or Dune or Of Mice and Men when problem
solving, especially problem solving that involves tools.

------
sjburt
Kind of an interesting thing to exhibit when the book never actually mentions
the type of motorcycle he is riding.

~~~
coldtea
If the book was inspired by/based on an actual trip, then it doesn't need to
be mentioned in the book, one can just check what motorcyle was used in the
trip, no?

~~~
colechristensen
A picture of Persig, his son, and the motorcycle on the trip:

[http://venturearete.org/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/galle...](http://venturearete.org/ResearchProjects/ProfessorGurr/gallery/albums/Pictures-
Robert-Pirsigs-original-1968-trip/aam.sized.jpg)

------
skilesare
The follow up Lila goes deeper. If you loved Zen you should give it a shot.

------
hulano
I read it just a few weeks ago because of a recommendation.

I was surprised to read that this book became/was a bestseller in the category
philosophy. I think its an interesting book, but its hard to read and i'm
still curious why it resonated with so many people? Or what specifically.

One thing he mentions in the book has bee then electroshock therapy which was
not as sever as he described it. He did not forgot his old him.

I also had the feeling to follow his illness with the obsession about quality.
But more in a way you follow a schizophrenic. It becomes very unclear to me if
he was a genius or became crazy. I had a friend with schizophrenia, he was 60%
smart and knew his facts and then 40% have been just crazy like he believes in
a stargate and has connections to the chines government. The problem with this
person was very simple: i stoppend trusting him even if he was right to some
extend.

I had the same feeling with this book. There is a high chance that his career
downfall happend because he was in an illusion ale state. Especially at the
end when he describes teaching in one university and taking the lecture in the
other. That fued was probably very one sided and he imagined it. The others
probably just saw some crazy dude.

There have been thinks which resonated with me, like this logically cutting of
things. The balance between western and eastern (or was it asian?) philosophy.

I also really disliked how he handled his son. He did not sound like a good
father.

Im very unsure what i took from this book.

~~~
brandur
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_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance#Philosophical_content)

~~~
dredmorbius
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
+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
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.

------
0898
Cycle though?

~~~
bagacrap
I too thought this an original application of the term but Merriam Webster and
Wikipedia both list it, although neither cites reference material.

The only examples I could find in the wild were parts of legal definitions
(chiefly "motor-driven cycles") and entity names ("Cycle World Magazine",
"Pete's Cycles", etc). There are also a few instances of "cycle racing"
refering to the human-powered version, yet I get the feeling this is a use
that's most popular with journalists who are not familiar with the culture or
lingo of bicycle enthusiasts. The use of noun-cycle does not seem more
prevalent in other locales like GB (motor bike or moto being more prevalent
across the pond).

In short I would conclude that cycle as a noun has a couple very narrow use
cases in modern English, and the Smithsonian needs better editing.

~~~
adrianmonk
According to wikiquote
([https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig)),
the book itself uses the word "cycle" in this sense.

For example:

> _The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a
> digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top
> of a mountain or in the petals of a flower._

Given that, it seems like a justifiable editing choice, even though it may be
a little obscure.

------
timwaagh
Zen and the Art of CSS Design is a good book.

~~~
timwaagh
got the title wrong. whoops. i meant this one: [https://www.amazon.com/Zen-
CSS-Design-Visual-Enlightenment/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Zen-CSS-Design-
Visual-Enlightenment/dp/0321303474)

------
RivieraKid
Why is this book mentioned so often here? I know nothing about it but my first
thought is that motorcycles and the people who love them have zero appeal to
tech / startup people.

~~~
JshWright
There may not be much overlap with the tech-bro/silicon valley (the TV show)
folks, but there is a huge amount of overlap when it comes to "hackers" (in
the sense that "Hacker News" uses the term).

It's also a lot less about actual motorcycles than the title would imply.

~~~
wallace_f
Another title could be something like: "...and the art (quality and values) of
human experience with technology"

