59 pages • 1 hour read
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part II
Chapter 11 Summary
John has heard about a different route for reaching Bozeman, one that the narrator knows Phaedrus used often. Phaedrus would use the road and was always in the area on frequent excursions into the surrounding wilderness. He took the trips to get away from the university and find solitude without the constraint of others around.
The lateral drift that Phaedrus embarked upon after being expelled from college led him into the army. He was sent to Korea, and the narrator points out that his letters and writing of the time were more emotional than before. While there, Phaedrus learned about Korean culture. On a trip back from Korea, Phaedrus reads The Meeting of East and West by F.S.C. Northrop, a book on Oriental philosophy. The book outlines the Eastern affinity for aesthetics and the Western affinity for the theoretical, a cultural split which parallels Phaedrus’s “romantic” and “classic” dichotomy.
Once Phaedrus returned to America, he decided to enroll in the university again, this time to study philosophy. According to Phaedrus, philosophy is a discipline higher than science, one that can allow him to ask the “bigger picture” questions that science would not entertain. The group is also traveling through the mountains in Montana, and the setting provides great juxtaposition with Phaedrus’ traveling.
Like the group traveling through the “high country” of Montana, Phaedrus had decided to travel through the “high country” of the mind. Delving into the texts that are meant to help and guide him, however, Phaedrus approached the guides with animosity and derision.
A turning point came for Phaedrus when he began to read the texts of David Hume and Immanuel Kant. These philosophers, unlike many others, better helped him to see and understand the dichotomy between “romantic” and “classic.” Hume is a Scottish empiricist, which means that he believes all knowledge stems from sensory input. Humans, therefore, cannot perceive the “substances” that might produce or emit this sensory data, only the data itself. Kant, however, working after Hume, built upon his predecessor’s conclusions and changed the face of reason forever. Kant maintains that humans possess a priori knowledge of things. A priori concepts exist independent of sense data but are reinforced by sensory input. To better explain, the narrator again uses the example of a motorcycle. The motorcycle itself is an a priori concept that humans have. This a priori concept is reinforced by the maintenance needed, such as wear and tear of tires, and paint jobs.
Chapter 12 Summary
The narrator ruminates on his Chautauqua again, distinguishing his work from that a novelist might do. Unlike a novelist, for instance, he considers John and Sylvia friends, not characters, and so leaves them out of his musings as much as possible. He does mention them from time to time when needed, but on the whole, his philosophical musings actually distance him from his friends and family, something that he is deeply saddened by, and yet something he acknowledges is a product of modern society.
The narrator then talks about the professor they are going to visit, Robert DeWeese. Robert teaches at the college where Phaedrus once taught, and the two were old friends. He admits that Phaedrus did not understand Robert, and vice versa, which caused Phaedrus to actually respect him. Both men reacted differently than expected to certain events, and this difference in perspective made each think that the other had access to some special knowledge.
The narrator then talks about his time in India, where he lived and studied before moving to Montana. He studied Oriental philosophy in India, but had a hard time with his studies as he could not agree with the philosophy of separating subject from object. It was also because of this that he did not practice Zen meditation; he relied too much on logic and sense and was not able to abandon these things in search of a Zen state.
During one of his lectures, Phaedrus’s teacher explained that the world is illusory. Phaedrus asked if the bombing of Hiroshima was illusory as well, and the teacher said yes. After this, Phaedrus left the Indian university and returned to America. He settled down in Montana, married, and had two children.
Chapter 13 Summary
As the group prepares for the trip to Bozeman, the narrator expresses his tension at returning. Phaedrus was always anxious when he taught at the college, mostly due to his solitary nature. It was hard having to assume the mantle of an instructor and talk in front of students. Also, academic freedom was being suppressed by right-wing politicians, as John had referenced earlier on with the list of subversive professors who were supposed to be fired. Phaedrus was supposed to just teach mechanically, as the college was a teaching school.
Though wanting to help his students, his efforts to remove the school’s accreditation angered many students. He decided to explain himself in a lecture, and gave a defense of his actions in an infamous defense called the Church of Reason lecture. In the lecture, Phaedrus compared the university to a church. A church building could be reused without offending a given religion because religion is not dependent on a physical structure. Likewise, the “real” university, what Phaedrus himself worked for, existed without a physical campus. It was in fact a body of reason within the collective minds of the students and teachers. If accreditation was removed, classes would still be held and teachers would still teach. It would simply signify that the mindset which was once there was no longer present, such as a religion no longer making use of a given church building.
The narrator concedes that Phaedrus’s lecture on the Church of Reason was expertly crafted and executed. The real “worshippers” of the Church of Reason, he continues, are only held to the pursuit of truth, not any university bureaucracy or political aim. Phaedrus’s behavior, though bold, was not condemned by his peers because, as an intellectual, he was expected to pursue rational truth.
The narrator also mentions that Phaedrus’s devotion to the Church of Reason was a likely a result of his understanding of its weaknesses. Phaedrus’ expert understanding of reason allowed him to comprehend its deficiencies.
Chapters 11-13 Analysis
Phaedrus’s lateral shift allows him to find that the classic and romantic split can be seen in a variety of forms, such as the split between Eastern and Western thought, which he witnessed in Korea and India. Eastern thought was identified as “aesthetical” and Western as “theoretical,” highlighting just how deep the split in rationality runs.
Researching the split further, the works of Hume and Kant are applied to show that concepts exist before thought, and that recognition of these concepts is supported by sensory data, therefore showing the classic and romantic working together with a concept that exists before thought.
External realities, such as the divide between subject and object as exemplified in the bombing of Hiroshima, caused Phaedrus to abandon studies in India and put him at odds with Zen meditation. These external realities also plague the narrator in the present, as he prepares to visit an old friend. He is afraid this friend might have an old view of him that is separate from his current personality.
Unlock all 59 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: