Robert M. Pirsig: Encyclopedia - Robert M. Pirsig

Robert M. Pirsig

Robert Maynard Pirsig (born September 6, 1928) is an American philosopher, famous for his first book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974). The book outlined Pirsig's ideas about the Good, in the form of a mostly-autobiographical tale of a man's motorcycle trip across North America with some friends and his son. The book remains a best seller to this day. In 1974 Pirsig was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to allow him to write its follow-up, Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991), in which he elaborates a Metaphysics of Quality.

Pirsig was a precocious child, with an IQ of 170 at age 9. He was promoted several grades, which, along with a stammer, made for a difficult childhood school experience. Pirsig began his studies at the University of Minnesota in 1943. After flunking out and serving with the US military in Korea, he returned to receive his B.A. in 1950. He then attended Benares Hindu University in India to further explore Eastern philosophy. In 1954 he married Nancy Ann James and the couple had a son, Chris, in 1956, and a second son, Theodore (Ted), in 1958.

Supporting himself by taking freelance jobs and teaching freshman English, Pirsig spent 1960–1963 in and out of mental institutions following a mental breakdown; he was treated with shock therapy. Pirsig divorced Nancy in 1978, going on to marry Wendy Kimball later in the year. The couple had a daughter, Nell, in 1981.

Pirsig has published little other than his two major works and avoids the public eye, frequently traveling around the Atlantic by boat, and has lived in various places around the United States as well as Sweden, Belgium and England. In 1979, Pirsig's first son Chris - who had played an important role in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - was stabbed to death during a mugging in San Francisco.

Robert M. Pirsig - Recognition

Pirsig's publisher's recommendation to his Board ended by commenting, "This book is brilliant beyond belief, it is probably a work of genius, and will, I'll wager, attain classic stature." Later, George Steiner, the reviewer, compared Pirsig's writing to Dostoevsky, Broch, Proust and Bergson. Other reviews of his work add, "Profoundly important, Disturbing, Deeply moving, Full of insights, A wonderful book", and "the assertion itself is valid... the analogies with Moby Dick are patent".

In 2005, the first ever conference on Robert Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality is organized by Dr Anthony McWatt at Liverpool University, England. This is at the same time as he is awarded the first ever academic PhD specifically concerned with the subject. Conference papers

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