Introducing Robert Pirsig
Robert M Pirsig (6 Sept 1928 – 24 Apr 2017) was most famously the author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – an Inquiry into Values” (ZMM, 1974) – generally considered the best-selling philosophy book of all time – a best seller that still sells today.
He also wrote a follow-up work “Lila – an Inquiry into Morals” (Lila, 1991) in which he elaborated his “Metaphysics of Quality” (MoQ).
His widow and archivist Wendy K Pirsig edited a selection of his work, including previously unpublished materials, in “On Quality – An Inquiry into Excellence” (OnQ, 2022).
So, who was he and what was his work about?
This remainder of this page is simply intended to provide summaries of Pirsig’s life and works for people who might be entirely new to him.
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- A Summary of his Main Works
- An Introduction to his Philosophy
- A Biographical Summary of his Life Story
(With directions to additional biographical resources, including resources about: people, places & journeys; bikes, boats & their maintenance.) - Introduction to all other Pirsig Resources available to the RPA
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A Summary of his Main Works
His most famous work is “ZMM” – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974). A father, son and two buddies motorcycle road trip from Minneapolis to San Francisco in 1968. Into this narrative he weaves “Chautauqua” – little edutainment talks – paralleling his own philosophical journey with the trip across the Rockies, and using his motorcycle and its maintenance as metaphors for our moral attention to understanding and caring about the world we live in and the technologies that mediate our personal experience within it. His focus is on “Quality” as the fundamentally ineffable nature of such experience and on the history of philosophy from the ancient Greeks, Zen Buddhists, native traditions and more. Just as these classic technology issues resonated with 19thC romantics and the later 20thC beat generation, so do those same timeless questions inform our wisdom in response to the advancing technologies and existential crises of the 21stC.
His important follow-up book was “Lila” (1991), which developed the same themes, this time around a sailboat trip narrative from the Great Lakes, via the Erie canal system and the Hudson river, to Manhattan and New Jersey. His philosophical elaboration included formulating his “Metaphysics of Quality” (MoQ) supporting dynamic evolution of our world through static patterns in physical, biological, social and intellectual layers.
Later “On Quality” (2022) is a posthumous selection of his writings and talks edited by his widow Wendy. If you’ve never read ZMM or Lila, or never felt you understood them, “On Quality” is a good place to start, because it re-focuses on the fundamental importance of Quality itself, with chapters that can be read in any order without needing to follow any complex narrative or academic philosophical argument.
For all his other papers, talks & contributions to works by others and for reviews & other works about his, see our Published Resources Index page(s).
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An Introduction to his Philosophy
From the brief summary of his works above, it is already apparent that Pirsig’s philosophy is primarily embedded in his narrative works, and presented in two quite different ways. It is no accident that he chose this approach rather than the formality of argument, critique and counter-argument expected of academic philosophy. In fact we can see from the summary of his main books, this tension between so-called classic & romantic ways of thinking and acting wasn’t itself new and is as relevant today as it has been in recurring historical cycles. Pirsig’s originality, besides sticking to his rhetorical narrative medium, was introducing Quality as the fundamental nature of experiencing the world and in suggesting a first static<>dynamic split in how we organise our world-view of “things happening” rather than an orthodox subject<>object division of “things”.
For some readers it was sufficient to take away that world-view in their participation in the world thereafter. The moral imperative of mindful attention to the world, as well as the enhanced sense of direct dynamic participation in the world from the open-road on a motorcycle or the open-water in a sailing boat. The Quality of being “in the frame” as opposed to merely viewing the world like a spectator through a window or an electronic screen.
For some the explicit relationship with the motorcycles and sailing boats, his and their particular cycles and boats and particular journeys, become their focus. Others, prompted metaphorically by “the motorcycle you are working on is yourself” or “the journey you’re on is your own”, sought to find the abstractions applicable more generally to the arrangement of human affairs, whether in the self-governance of organisations or indeed within academia itself. In his second book Lila, Pirsig himself elaborated how his static<>dynamic Quality thinking supported a metaphysical model – the MoQ – for the world as a whole, where static patterns of quality evolve by dynamic interactions through physical, biological, social and intellectual layers. Many have increasingly successfully taken Pirsig’s lead in fitting this framework into the canon of philosophy, so-called western academic as well as eastern participatory forms, acknowledging the shoulders of many other giants who have gone before.
This is not the place to attempt a summary of the many published interpretations that have been advanced – see our Philosophical Resources Page(s). But one thing is clear, however comprehensively and formally Pirsig’s MoQ can be represented academically, we need dynamic integration with the living quality view in practice, and must avoid the orthodoxy of what Pirsig called the “Church of Reason” as exclusively rational intellect.
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Biographical Summary:
Pirsig was born in Minneapolis in 1928 to parents of Swedish descent. His father Maynard was a Harvard Law graduate, later a Professor and the Dean of the Minnesota Law School. While a post-graduate at Harvard, Maynard embarked on research at the Inns of Court in London, England which meant that as a young boy Bob lived with his parents near Hendon aerodrome in London. He attended pre-school there in 1932/33 and traced his interest in motorcycles and in English language and culture to these early experiences.
Returning to Minneapolis, he was intellectually advanced for his age, was assessed according to multiple IQ tests over his life, was advanced in school years and actually completed his freshman Chemistry year at the University of Minnesota aged only 15. He was already asking philosophical questions about science that were not satisfied by his orthodox education, so he drifted, found himself expelled and joined the army. As well as training this provided him with experience of Korea and opportunities to read around his philosophical interests. Honourably discharged and funded by the GI Bill, he gained a BA in Philosophy (1948/50) at the University of Minnesota and continued a course of oriental philosophy (1950/51) at Benares Hindu University in India.
Educated and interested in his subject he’s odd-jobbing without any career plans, starts a journalism course in 1952 and gets involved with editing and publishing the college magazine, does technical writing jobs, and is already thinking about writing his own “great book”. To earn money, live cheaply and hoping to find time and space to write, he quits his course and elopes with first wife Nancy first to Reno, Nevada and then to Minatitlan, Mexico. These projects are abortive and by 1955 they are back to Minneapolis where Bob continues with technical writing and editing jobs in education and marketing, including more market-research film-making trips to Mexico. And they start a family. It’s not until 1958, now with two sons Chris and Ted, that Bob finishes his journalism MA and decides his vocation is teaching writing and English.
At this point, the stories of his teaching English in Bozeman, Montana; the “Quality” seed-crystal sown by teaching colleague Sarah; his philosophy PhD and teaching in Chicago; his native American Indian and Peyote experiences; his descent into and recovery from mental illness; and his return to writing back in Minneapolis are very much part of his books. Suffice to say from 1966 onwards, his taking-up motorcycling with buddy John Sutherland, his writing of his first Zen and the Art essay for John, the 1968 road-trip and the eventual completion, publication and meteoric success of ZMM in 1974 are legendary.
Not least because he shunned celebrity and academic debate, and because his second book Lila was less commercially successful, the rest of his life is generally less well known, though nevertheless documented in the biographical sources below. The success of ZMM funded the ongoing family interest in Zen as well as their passion for sailing, which provided the narrative backbone for the sailing trip that became his second book Lila.
Despite the lesser success of Lila, apart from a small number of interviews, talks and papers, he engaged generously with those who corresponded with him about the philosophical content of his work – having read both ZMM and Lila – and provided contributions to their works too. This was especially true between the formation of “the Lila Squad” MoQ-Discussion forum in 1993 and the 2005 Liverpool conference. Since then he continued to live privately with second wife Wendy in New Hampshire until his death in 2017.
If you haven’t already you need to read his books, summarised below. And if you want to know more about his work and his biography, follow the other links below.
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Further Biographical Sources:
Pirsig’s own books – “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (ZMM, 1974) and “Lila” (1991) – a road-trip and a boat-trip – are “auto-fictions” in the sense that whilst the narratives are rhetorical fiction, with deep philosophical messages, the references to his own life history and the people and places he encountered along the way, are confirmed to be autobiographically true.
“The Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (DiSanto and Steele, 1990) confirms significant biographical background as well as analysis of his first book and the motorcycle journey within it.
“The Robert Pirsig Biographical Timeline” (2003, last updated 2009) was collated from all available sources at the time, with review and corrections from Pirsig himself.
“Zen and Now” (Mark Richardson, 2008) – contains significant additional journalistic research on Pirsig’s life and family.
“The Robert Pirsig Story” – Preface (pages xxiii to xxxi) to “On Quality” (Wendy Pirsig, 2022) is a brief summary of his life story.
People, Places & Journeys; Bikes, Boats & Maintenance – As noted in the summaries of his work and his philosophy above, because particular episodes in his life are very much part of the philosophical journey, say the motorcycle ride, the sailboat trip and his English teaching experience in Bozeman for example, many are interested in resources that help readers to experience these first hand. (By far the greatest resource of this kind is Henry Gurr’s: people who met and influenced Pirsig directly in real life, detailed route maps, photographs and points of interest and so on. The RPA has a number of standalone derived resources too – journey guides for “individual tourist at own risk” or “group rides”.) It’s useful to understand “where Pirsig was coming from” but RPA again reminds readers that “the motorcycle you are working on is yourself” and “the journey you are on is your own” and Pirsig would not thank us for becoming obsessed with him and his life or precise details of exactly which bikes and boats and precise locations of Pirsig’s tyre-tracks and footprints. Indeed he would be turning in his grave to hear of “Pirsig Pilgrims” other than tongue in cheek.
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