DMB, Thanks. This helps. I'll put it aside for when I get back to the essays.
Marsha At 11:55 AM 12/18/2007, you wrote: >marsha said to dmb: >For me the James stuff is still too difficult. I'd like to try to >explain why. I started the mp3 version of his 'Essays on Radical >Empiricism', but quickly realized it required total >concentration. It felt like I walked in on a very interesting >discussion on an unfamiliar topic. I listened to the first two >chapters and was just beginning to get some sense of the rhythm and >meaning of his language. I stopped because I realized this was >going to require listening to the book twice and with more time and >energy than I had available. I certainly want to pursue >understanding Radical Empiricism to his depth, and I plan to get >back to it after the holidays. Hopefully others are doing better than I. > >dmb says: >Yes, it takes concentration. There's no doubt about it. And even >Matt, who reads about as seriously as anyone around here, is at a >loss when it comes to radical empiricism. But I gotta say that >listening to the essays from Librivox (thanks again for that) has >paid off in a way that reading never did. The richness of it led me >to scrutinize small sections, especially the one's that looked like >the MOQ. But listening to the essays forced me to see them >differently and I realized for the first time what he was saying >about "conjunctive relations". It felt like a major breakthrough. > >Those first two essays are key. As the editor's preface points out, >these are constantly referred to in James's subsequent writings. The >editor also discusses the development of James's own attitude toward >radical empiricism. At first, he considered it to be separate from >his pragmatism, as Pirsig mentions in Lila. But later he began to >think it was the best way to get pragmatism to work and then he came >to see it as even more important than pragmatism. This would be at >the very end of his life, when he starting using "static" and >"dynamic" as key terms. Here's a chunk of my term paper... > >"A World of Pure Experience" is one of the most important articles >in the series and the only one included in Stuhr's anthology. In it, >James says the following: > >"To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its >constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor >exclude from them any element that is directly experienced. For such >a philosophy, the relations that connect experiences must themselves >be experienced relations, and any kind of relation experienced must >be accounted as real as anything else in the system" and "a real >place must be found for every kind of thing experienced, whether >term or relation" (PCAP 182). > >This is radical empiricism in a nutshell but it requires some >unpacking, as they say. The first thing to notice here is James >wants experience to define the limits of what can and cannot be >included in a philosophical system. In that sense it is not the >experience that is "pure" but the world is "pure experience", which >is to say nothing but experience. Again, in this view reality and >experience are not two different things. On the other hand, James >describes "pure experience" or "the instant field of the present" as >"experience in its 'pure' state, plain unqualified actuality, a >simple that, as yet undifferentiated into thing and thought, and >only virtually classifiable as objective fact or as someone's >opinion" (PCAP 189). Both hands work together, if you will, against >the same Cartesian problematic. Insofar as pure experience itself is >"only virtually classifiable" as thought and thing, we are not >taking the subject-object distinction as a metaphysical foundation >but as a product of reflection and insofar as we exclude >extra-experiential entities from our "constructions" the subjective >self and objective reality are excluded again. Unlike the >traditional forms of empiricism, radical empiricism does not limit >experience to sensory experience because it flows from those prior >assumptions and the concept of sense experience is itself a product >of reflection. > The second thing to notice is what James says about "the > relations that connect experiences". James thinks that "conjunctive > relations", which is to say the way things are connected in > experience, have been overlooked by traditional empiricism and that > this oversight is what creates the gaps between terms, especially > terms such as subjects and objects. For this reason, he wants us to > pay special attention to "the most intimate of all relations", "the > conjunctive relation that has given most trouble to philosophy" > (PCAP 182 and 183). To put it simply, James is saying "the passing > of one experience into another" is itself "a definite sort of > experience" (PCAP 183). James wants us to notice these connecting > experiences because it is a way to offer an alternative explanation > as to the nature of the subjective self and of objective reality. > Or rather, it explains how they came about in the first place. The > failure to account for these relations generated the need for a > subjective self as the agent that connects experience. The > continuity of experience was explained by the existence of a > thinker that has the thoughts or does the thinking, as something > separate and distinct from the thinking itself. When we say, "it is > raining", to use a classic example, there isn't actually an "it" > that does the raining. The raining is "it". That's what James is > saying about the Cartesian self and the objective reality that goes > with it. "On the principles which I am defending, a 'mind' or > 'personal consciousness' is the name for a series of experiences > run together by certain definite transitions, and an objective > reality is a series of similar experiences knit together by > different transitions" (PCAP 190). The re-conception of "objective" > realities is similarly achieved by the connections between > experiences. In his main example, the walk that terminates at > Memorial Hall, the connection between the idea and the building > itself is known in experience through a continuously developing > progress and "objective" knowledge goes no deeper than this (PCAP > 185). "Whatever terminates that chain was, because it now proves > itself to be, what the concept 'had in mind'" (PCAP 186). "The > towering importance for human life of this kind of knowing lies in > the fact that an experience that knows another can figure as its > representative, not in any quasi-miraculous 'epistemological' > sense, but in the definite practical sense of being its substitute > in various operations" (PCAP 186). That's why James wants us to > notice that most intimate of all relations, to notice the > experienced connections between experiences. James says, "to be a > radical empiricist means to hold fast to this conjunctive relation > of all others, for this is the strategic point, the position > through which, if a hole be made, all the corruptions of dialectics > and all the metaphysical fictions pour into our philosophy" (PCAP > 183). The error common to materialists and idealists, mistaking the > products of reflection for existential realities as Stuhr put it, > came in through that hole. > >If nothing else, this will give you something to look for next time >you're in the mood to listen. >dmb > > > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! >http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec >Moq_Discuss mailing list >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org >Archives: >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
