On Quality : An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished And Selected Writings - Robert M Pirsig

On Quality

An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished And Selected Writings

By: Robert M Pirsig, Wendy K. Pirsig

Paperback | 10 May 2022

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $32.99

$30.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $7.56 with

 or 
In Stock and Aims to ship in 1-2 business days

When will this arrive by?

From the author of the multi-million-copy-selling classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an original collection of Robert Pirsig’s writings on the central theme of his thought “quality” featuring never-before-seen selections from his unpublished works.

“The ultimate goal in the pursuit of excellence is enlightenment.”

Robert M. Pirsig wrote this unpublished line in 1962 while a patient at Downey Veteran Administration Hospital in Illinois, where he was admitted as a psychiatric patient. More than a decade before the release of the book that would make him famous, Pirsig had already caught hold of the central theme that would animate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: Quality, a concept loosely likened to “excellence,” “rightness,” or “fitness” that Pirsig saw as kindred to the Buddhist ideas of “Dharma” or the “Tao.” As he later wrote in Zen, “Quality is Buddha.”

Though he was hounded by fans who considered him a guru, the famously private Pirsig only published two books and consented to few interviews and almost no public appearances in later decades. Yet he wrote and thought almost continually, refining his “Metaphysics of Quality” until his death in 2017.

Now for the first time, readers will be granted access to five decades of Pirsig’s personal writings in this posthumous collection that illuminates his thinking to an unprecedented degree. Skillfully edited and introduced by Wendy Pirsig, Robert’s wife of over forty years, the collection includes previously unpublished texts, speeches, letters, interviews, and private notes (including from Pirsig’s time in the mental hospital), as well as key excerpts from Zen and the Art of the Motorcycle Maintenance and his second book, Lila.

Since its publication in 1974, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has established itself as a modern classic of popular philosophy; selling millions of copies and transforming a generation, while serving as a perennial touchstone for the generations that follow. On Quality is a remarkable addition to the literary and philosophical canon, from one of the most influential thinkers and writers of our time.

About the Author

Robert M. Pirsig (1928-2017) is the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , which has sold more than five-million copies since its publication in 1974, and Lila, a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He graduated from the University of Minnesota (B.A., 1950; M.A., 1958) and also attended Benares Hindu University in India, where he studied Eastern philosophy, and the University of Chicago, where he pursued a PhD in philosophy. Pirsig's motorcycle resides in the Smithsonian Institution.

Other Editions and Formats

Hardcover

Published: 26th April 2022

More in Philosophy & Aesthetics

The Birth of Tragedy : Penguin Classics - Friedrich Nietzsche

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Bluets - Maggie Nelson

Hardcover

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Color Charts : A History - Anne Varichon

RRP $89.99

$59.35

34%
OFF
The Joyous Science : Penguin Classics - Friedrich Nietzsche

RRP $22.99

$21.90

The Social Production of Art : Communications and Culture - Janet Wolff
Oil : Object Lessons - Michael Tondre

$19.99

The Beauty of Everyday Things : Penguin Modern Classics - Soetsu Yanagi
Love A History : A History - Ryan Patrick Hanley

$201.50

Humanistic Narratives - Professor Michel  Serres

RRP $130.00

$97.75

25%
OFF
Humanistic Narratives - Professor Michel  Serres

$90.50

Affect as Contamination : Embodiment in Bioart and Biotechnology - Agnieszka  Wolodzko
Fregean Realism : Frodo Lives! and Other Fictions - Emily Baragwanath

RRP $197.00

$154.95

21%
OFF
Kant, Adorno, and the Forms of History - William S. Allen

RRP $180.00

$132.25

27%
OFF
Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice - Nicholas Davey
Technics and Enaction : A Philosophy of Imagination - Émilien Dereclenne

RRP $170.00

$125.75

26%
OFF