Quality (philosophy)

This article is about quality in the philosophical sense. For quality (disambiguation), see Quality (philosophy) (disambiguation).

Philosophy and common sense tend to see quality as related either to subjective feelings or to objective facts. The subject-object in question might be

• a concrete and functional (e.g. Aristotelian) value to be learnt and applied (a and b), or
• a psychic (e.g. platonic) ideal to be apprehended and represented (c).
• A third view tends to see quality not as a secondary value that something has, rather a primary truth which comprises apparent subjects and objects (d).

So the quality of something depends on the criteria being applied to it. From the neutral point of view, the quality of something is simply the inseparable sum of its essential attributes or properties and the quality of something does not determine its value (also in the economical sense).

Subjectively, something might be good because it is useful, because it is beautiful, or simply because it exists. Determining or finding quality therefore involves an understanding of use, beauty and existence - what is useful, what is beautiful and what exists. The usefulness aspect is reflected in the common usage of quality.

Robert M. Pirsig, in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, studies the Metaphysics of Quality, and examines the distinctions and relationship between classical and romantic quality, seeking to reconcile the two views and understand how they stand in relationship to each other.

In this context the two aspects of classical object-oriented and romantic subject-oriented quality roughly parallel aesthetic quality and functional quality. The resolution of the book points to a view of quality which relegates this subject-object dualism to a product of a non-dualistic Absolute.