Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

Robert Pirsig chronicles his intellectual journey into the essence of belief and existence within the scope of a cross-country motorcycle trip. Most of the story is related by his present self, who refers to the person he was before being treated in an insane asylum, as "Phaedrus." Phaedrus, Pirsig tells us, made a discovery tantamount to Copernicus' reconfiguration of the universe, and he, the present narrator, is here to explain it all.

Phaedrus found that by looking at the world not as a duality of subject and object only, but as a triune format in which subject and object are striving towards what he terms "Quality," or ultimate reality, he could reconcile himself to the idea of existence and achieve peace of mind. From this principle Pirsig reasons that the revered Ancients, Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, were mistaken, and the Sophists, whom the great philosophers derided, were in fact closer to the truth, that their Virtue was synonymous with his Quality, their pre-Socratic striving for "arete," excellence, more in line with the way things should be. He descends into an equation of Eastern mysticism, ultimately ending with an inconclusive attempt at transubstantiation. He partially bases his theories on the "mythos," the collective awareness of mankind that we are all privy to, almost echoing Chesterton when he said, "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors."

When Pirsig equates Dharma and the Buddha with his Quality, he loses credibility. The ancient Eastern texts have no authority; they have themselves only to offer. It is as if he fixates on them merely because they are not Western, because they are not heir to the legacy of those mistaken Greek philosophers.

Pirsig reasons for pages and pages, and though his overarching philosophy is faulty, he does have some good minor points. He takes up with the scientific method, insisting that there are an infinite number of hypotheses for any given experiment, and so the selection of the hypotheses that may be correct cannot be done scientifically, that is, in some objective textbook format; rather, the selection invariably involves a sort of subconscious art that comes from the perpetual reach for Quality.

"It is the quest of this special classic beauty, the sense of the harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose the facts most fitting to contribute to this harmony. It is no the facts but the relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the sole objective reality." That harmony speaks to the central drive of humanity. In literature, one continually seeks cohesion, threads of continuity, recurring symbolism- harmony. In life, one looks for meaning, purpose, reason, to make sense of it all- to bring the universe into harmony. His is a valid observation.

When extending his concept of Quality into real life, Pirsig infuses his esoterism with a more pragmatic air. "It is the little, pathetic attempts at Quality that kill. The plaster false fireplace in the apartment, shaped and waiting to contain a flame that can never exist." He identifies a feeling I have harbored for quite a while but only on vague, indefinite terms.