John, Can't top what Dan has written in response to dmb, so I won't add much. I find something dynamic in all your writing, and I've even become interested in learning more about Royce. You're writing is alive in the way I experienced ZMM and LILA.
There is another on this list who when he writes about W. James, makes me think philosophy is dead and self-promotion is alive. But I am quite sure I must be projecting my own demons in seeing that. Marsha On Mar 3, 2010, at 4:23 PM, John Carl wrote: > Greetings Marsha, and thanks for the questions. Since I'm on my lunch > break, I'll start by just answering one question, and I'll pick #2 because > I've got it right in front of me at the moment. > > And of course, I'll confine myself to the Roycean side of the question, and > leave James to the dime-a-dozen Jamesians extant. > > "Should evolutionary doctrines be true, the 'real world' will not be a place > of mechanical laws and the flux of atoms; it will be a world 'of struggle > and conflict, of triumph of the good, or of the abolition of evil, of the > moral importance of the world, of the transition from lower to higher > conditions... It will be a world of *ideals."* > * > * > Kuklick continues: > > "Why does Royce see these implications in the truth of evolutionary > doctrines? An evolutionary process is historical, and to appreciate it, he > claims, we must forsake that kind of temporality which confines mechanistic > explanation. Genetic explanation 'takes in at a glance' a series of > moments; it treats them as a whole. This temporal whole will have meaning > or significance, and this dimension of time transcends that encapsulated in > the moment-to-moment sequence which characterizes changes in the physical > world. An evolutionary sequence may be a series of events which qua series > is physical--a set of causally related conditions occuring in space and > time; but to accept this series as an historical explanation is to emphasize > unity, meaning or significance in a way that causal explanation will not. > > When a temporal series functions this way as an explanation, when it affirms > meaning or significance, our explanation takes on a moral dimension; it will > be evaluative." > > Intellectual History of Josiah Royce, > > And I guess Marsha, for #3, I believe that last statement makes my case for > what Royce brings to the MoQ. He posits evolution as proof that the cosmos > is a moral order - he agrees with Pirsig's view of evolution in Lila. He > shows that even when your arguments are good, there are jealous and naughty > men in the world who want to keep you down and even if Pirsig said > everything perfectly, that's no guarantee he'd be accepted by a values-free > Academia. > > > And now, I'm off to work! > > John > 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/md/archives.html ___ 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/md/archives.html
