quote · Legacy record
What’s emerging from the pattern of my own life is the for belief that the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can’t be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem. The only ones who’re solving it are solving it at a personal level by abandoning ‘square’ rationality altogether and going by feelings alone. Like John and Sylvia here. And millions of others like them. And that seems like a wrong direction too. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn’t that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it’s capable of coming up with a solution.
What’s emerging from the pattern of my own life is the for belief that the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can’t be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem. The only ones who’re solving it are solving it at a personal level by abandoning ‘square’ rationality altogether and going by feelings alone. Like John and Sylvia here. And millions of others like them. And that seems like a wrong direction too. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that the solution to the problem isn’t that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of rationality so that it’s capable of coming up with a solution.
Approximate author period: c. 1972 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Robert M. Pirsig
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1972 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1928 to 2017; Wikidata Q366575, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q366575 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 205989; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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