Chapter 8, 9, and 10 Summary

Chapter 8 opens with them in Miles City, Montana at eight in the morning. They had arrived exhausted the previous day. The Narrator speaks of motorcycle maintenance being a completely rational enterprise. As he examines his dirty spark plugs, he feels as if he's in church performing a religious rite. He discusses the need for precision instruments to use for working on cycle parts and for working on concepts. This leads him to the idea of hierarchies and how they comprise systems and our present construction of systematic thought. He finds a loose fourth tappet and adjusts it. Then he speaks of Phaedrus' nearly photographic memory and its organizational style. Continuing his thoughts related to the environment at the school where Phaedrus had taught, he covers the list of 50 radical professors targeted by the school's president for dismissal. The chapter ends with...