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I'm glad you understood the
jocular intention, Gary. I was signaling as much in referring to
myself as a "heathen", which is a pejorative term one would not
normally use in a self-description. In fact, what occasioned my remark was
merely the impertinent fact that I had recently viewed a couple of
the episodes in the HBO series "Deadwood", in which Native
Americans are referred to as "heathen," and I had been idly reflecting on
the question of what Peirce thought about Native Americans (American
"Indians"). I don't recall encountering a single allusion to
the topic in anything of his that I have read. After posting that
message, I realized that the jocular intent
might be misunderstood and I might well be offending
somebody for no good reason. So I looked up "heathen" in -- you
guessed it! -- the Century Dictionary, and it seems to have more or less
the same extension as "pagan", and be similar in origin:
"heathen" seems to have come from the use of "heath", which originally
referred to an area of nature which has not been "civilized" by European
standards of civilization, hence still infested by nature gods and demons (as
the non-heathen would regard them.) A somewhat more restricted usage
has it referring to any people who do not recognize the deity of the
Hebrew, Christian, or Muslim religions. None of which is of any apparent
relevance to us here.
It is true, though, that
Peirce was Christian in some sense, and it is certainly not out of place for you
to reflect here upon what that might mean. I don't wish to pursue it
further myself at the moment, but I will say that, as regards the efficacy of
prayer, I do recall Peirce saying that this was a matter that should be settled
by experimental observation. Does praying for rain tend to result in
rain? People regularly pray for rain here in West Texas -- indeed,
"heathens" in tribal dress are sometimes invited for the purpose in order to
make sure that all bases are touched -- and I dare say one could actually
check out the results of that, though I don't recall anyone ever actually doing
so and reporting on what the record shows -- perhaps because that might
involve certain complications in the cases where the rain comes in the form of
tornadic storms! The problem of the Sorcerer's Apprentice!
(Come to think of it, suspicions might then arise about
Lubbock harboring Sodom or Gomorrah-like tendencies, deserving of the
harsh justice of Yahweh, since the city was hit pretty hard by a twister
that ripped through the center of town some thirty years
ago!)
But enough of that. Peirce
recognized a more elevated form of prayer than this, in any case, and
your comments were intended more seriously, and I don't wish to discourage
exploration of his religious thinking, especially in view of the
seeming overlap of the religious and the philosophical in the Neglected
Argument, for example. But I'm not interested in pursuing the topic
further myself at this time and will leave it to you and others to carry it
further.
Joe
Ransdell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 4:40
PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Peircean prayer, was:
Re: one list archive now working
Joe,
Thanks for the update on Gmane.You also wrote:
I don't myself believe in the power of prayer, unfortunately;
but for those of you who make up for the deficiencies of sceptics like me,
let me request that you include that search engine in your daily prayers
because we certainly could use a good search engine after these many years
of deprivation! (And bear in mind, too, that Peirce was himself a Christian
of sorts, as you doubtless know, so your prayers will not be wasted on
benefiting heathens like me in ways we do not deserve!)
But
Peirce was not an orthodox and certainly not a "naive" Christian so that the
efficacy of prayer--if it were considered at all- would certainly not be
anything like the quasi-magical power you are pointing to, but rather would
tend toward the real influence of ideas, the influence, for example, of
many seeing the truth together, whether it be in some corner of science
or some corner of Manhattan when, as Peirce once related, a convention of
young Christian people hit the town and transformed the City in some (to
him) palpably sweet and uplifting way for a weekend (the truth is it's
mainly been the Jewish influence on New York which has uplifted this
town, for just a few examples: the great Jewish philanthropic and social
agencies created here, a vast number of artistic and cultural and intellectual
enterprises of all sorts---from NYU to the New York Times--originating here,
etc., etc. and which have decidedly answered many of the prayers
for generations of New Yorkers). I think Peirce might have conceived of prayer
(if he concerned himself much with it at all, & I am not aware of his
discussing the matter) in this sort of way: as the power of symbols,
say, Truth and Justice, to influence & effect our lives (even as we
confront lies and injustice).
But my main point now is that it is
possible to be a Christian and not subscribe to the dogmas &
naivetes of certain forms of Christianity. Church history, it's true as many
have noted, suggests a tendency for much institutional religion and many
theological interpretations to exclude (and worse, persecute, etc)as Peirce
also pointed out, And not all would agree with me that one can even be a
Christian in this "looser sense" of not doctrinally conforming (perhaps your
"Christian of sorts"?) For example, in at least one of his letters to Kenneth
Ketner (their correspondence collected as A Thief of Peirce) Percy
comments that Peirce was not really a Christian in the sense that some Roman
Catholics might say one must accept certain doctrines in order to
be one at all. I don't agree with Percy, of course (and there are
certainly Catholics who would join me in what I'm arguing here), while
it does appear that Peirce was certainly not a dogmatic Christian, as I am
not, and as indeed any number of professed Christians are not. We would rather
not have the naive fundamentalist wing stand for the Christianity of some of
the others of us. I think it's always been possible to be a "different kind"
of (non-conformist) Christian, as in another era Meister Eckhart seems
to have been in his very different way. Finally, one may even recite, as
Peirce did, the Apostle's Creed with others in church on Sunday, yet
conceive of the universe perhaps more along the lines suggested by this
extraordinary analysis of Edwina Taborsky
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/taborsky/p-enetab.htm
than
along the lines of Genesis (btw, I know nothing at all about ET's religious
views or lack thereof; I just happen to be reading her paper) But this
standing shoulder to shoulder with others confessing a belief in a synechastic
& agapastic Power is not hypocrisy since those ancient symbols are
now interpreted differently, that is, semeiotically and evolutionarily,
but with no less a sense of the agapastic tendency of the cosmos, and of our
important role in furthering that (were we ever together to
begin to realize our human vocation adequately and again--or, rather,
finally--see our world as, yes, an intelligible but also a sacred place). This
kind of evolutionary religion is probably only now even really possible, or
rather, it is my hope that these agapastic tendencies are real and, so, can be
realized.. Not that the quietistic Eastern religions don't have much to offer
us aesthetically & meditationally, nor that the tribal ones might not yet
help bring us into much deeper contact with nature (Eugene Halton's point: "To
walk in beauty"), but so far Christianity is the only religion with
evolutionary and agapastic potential (this is in brief my argument contra
Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian, I suppose :-) and why I am, and
why I believe Peirce was a Christian.and not a heathen (I take this to mean,
someone without a prayer :-)
Joe, I know you spoke jocularly and I've
made much too much of this. Also, I think you know how I detest discussing
religious issues (and only do so when provoked :-), so if you care to respond
to these ramblings, I'll leave you with the last word.
Gary
Joseph Ransdell wrote:
Auke and list:
Yes, the Gmane Archive in particular seems to be what is wanted, though
there are still a couple of things to be determined about it before I am
willing to conclude to that. I'll say what those are in a moment but let me
explain first what I see as a possible advantage in it in addition to its
usefulness as a searchable archive, namely, its possible use as the primary
interface for the list for those who want to use it that way, because one
can post to the list from the Gmane interface, both in replying and when
starting up a new thread, so that it can take the place of the lyris email
interface without the latter being simply abandoned. This can be done in
either of two ways: (1) one way would be to have a browser bookmark or
"favorites" link (URL button) on one's computer desktop that, when clicked,
takes you directly to the Gmane Archive, where the latest message is waiting
with the recent ones available as listed in threaded form in the panel above
it. (2) The other way, would be to bring it up as a newsgroup folder that
appears on the same folder panel as one's email messages folders appear.
When you open it up you then get the same sort of two-panel above-and-below
layout as if you go to Gmane.
I think, though, that using a button link to go directly to Gmane in your
browser instead of pulling it up as a newsgroup mail item is probably
preferable, but I am not yet certain about that. One always has to use
these things for a while in order to understand what is truly convenient.
But I like the convenience of the drop-down panel of options that appears on
the upper right of the upper panel with the threads on it.
Let me make this completely explicit to avoid confusing those not yet
acquainted with it: Click on the following URL (and make a browser bookmark
for your desktop when it takes you to your destination):
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce
This takes you to the The Gmane Archive where you will find the screen split
into two panels, above and below. In the panel below there is the latest
posted message. In the panel above there is the list of messages previously
posted in threaded form. You can click on any of those lines and a new
window will be opened with that message in it. Back to what you find at
first, though, you can change the threaded representation of the past
messages into a list organized by date only, with the most recent one listed
at the top of the list.
Now, most of the options available to you are to be found listed in a
dropdown panel located on the upper panel, which is labeled
"--action--".
It should have been labeled simply as "options", in my opinion, but,
anyway, click that and you get a list of possible things to do: if you want
to reply to the message which is presently appearing in the bottom panel,
which is the most recent message posted, you click on
"Followup"
They should have labeled that as "reply"! -- but, okay, clicking that will
then give you a window suitable for composing a reply. If, on the other
hand, you want to start a new thread, click instead on the option labeled
"Post".
That will give you a window suitable for posting a message for a new thread
instead.
There are other options as well. I suggest trying each of them out in turn
to see what they get you. One of things you will find is that there are
still other interfaces available! To avoid confusion I won't go into them
here other than to say that although some of these alternative interfaces
are more attractive than the basic interface I am presently describing, they
do not provide a panel with a threaded or chronological list of messages on
it. Hence they are not as useful. But you can decide for yourself whether
to work with one of them instead.
Finally, if you look at the bottom of the lower panel you will find several
more options, the most important of which is a search window for typing in a
string for a Boolean search of the archive. I leave it to you to use that.
One caveat, though: the search panel works only for messages that have been
indexed, and they are not indexed immediately. Apparently, the practice is
to re-index the entire archive once a day or so, which is apparently
necessary in order to get the latest messages integrated with the rest in a
common indexing scheme. It seems to me there should be an easier way, but
what do I know? Anyway, that means that you might have to wait for a day or
so to insure that the latest messages are going to be called up in the
search. Now, the truth is that I don't know how well the search engine
actually works since the latest messages haven't been indexed yet, unless
that engine has cranked up since the last time I tried it. But, assuming it
really is a good index engine, this is not too much of an inconvenience
since you usually know what the most recent messages relevant to your
search topic is anyway. It is pulling up the older ones that is the most
important. I don't myself believe in the power of prayer, unfortunately;
but for those of you who make up for the deficiencies of sceptics like me,
let me request that you include that search engine in your daily prayers
because we certainly could use a good search engine after these many years
of deprivation! (And bear in mind, too, that Peirce was himself a Christian
of sorts, as you doubtless know, so your prayers will not be wasted on
benefiting heathens like me in ways we do not deserve!)
Joe Ransdell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Auke van Breemen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:58 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working
Joe,
Nice job, good tool!
I did test the posting facility in gmane and tried out what happens if a
non subscriber to the list uses this facility by using an address that
is different from the one I am known by in the list.
In five minutes I received a message:
Gmane:
This is a non-public mailing list, which means that you have to
subscribe to the list to post to it. If you're already subscribed to
the list, Gmane can forward this message to the list if you respond to
this message. If not, you should sign up to the mailing list first,
and then respond to this message, or just forget about it.
----
I think this is exactly the behavior that we want. Another nice feature
of gmane is that in the same roll down menu, the item 'information'
provides the info needed to subscribe.
Auke
-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: donderdag 12 januari 2006 3:07
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working
The "official" new archive for PEIRCE-L is now functional,
though I have not
yet managed to import the old messages from the lyris
listserver. But it is
now working nonetheless, and it can be accessed in several
different ways,
but to avoid needless confusion I will refer to one of these as the
"official archive", which is also called "The Gmane Archive",
and is to be
found at the following URL: :
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce
The second access to that material is at the address I
provided in the
previous message on the topic several days ago, which I will
refer to as
"The Mail Archive" (because that is actually its name).
Think of it as a
backup for the official archive, which is The Gmane Archive.
The URL for it
is:
http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l%40lyris.ttu.edu/
If you go to both you will find that The Mail Archive, the
back up archive,
actually has a number of messages in it that are not (yet) in
The Gmane
Archive. That is because I accidentally got it setup first,
not knowing
what I was doing. But they will both be filled soon with
what must be
many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of old messages
imported from the
lyris listserver, which has been archiving all along but is
so awkward to
use that it might as well not exist.
There is more to be said about this, but I don't want to
induce confusion by
doing so in the present message. I will wait until a better
time to get
into further detail on it. Hopefully, this is the sort of
confusion that
attends progress..
Joe Ransdell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Ransdell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:42 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] one list archive now working
There is now an archive for the list that is working, and a
second one that
apparently still needs to be debugged but should be in
working order soon.
The URL for the web-based version of the one that is now working is:
http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l%40lyris.ttu.edu/
You might want to check it out but I should add that this is
NOT the main
one but a second one provided for purposes of redundancy, I
guess. It is
called "The Mail Archive". The main one is called "The Gmane
Archive"" and
is not yet functional for some reason, though it is supposed
to be. I'll
give you a URL for it as soon as it gets functional. It will
be available
both as a website and as a newsgroup that you can feed into your mail
program so that it shows up as a folder there. As soon as it
is working
right I will make an arrangement for importing into both of
them everything
in the lyris listserver that is presently available in that
all but unusable
archive there.
Joe Ransdell
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