thanks john, good stuff the end reminds me of goethe and his approach to science, which steiner picked up and predicated a lot of his work in education on. goethe stated that the process of observation was usually not carried through well...that the observer was too quick to intellectualise the observed phenomena along already existing lines of categorization etc. instead he proposed a longer and more careful observation from a mutiplicity of viewpoints which allows the phenomena to reveal its uniqueness.
he that would study and portray a living creature thinks it fit to start with finding out the ways to drive the spirit out of it. this done, he holds within in his hand the pieces to be named and stated but, aah! the spirit-tie that spann'd and knit them, has evaporated ye instruments, at me ye surely mock with cog and wheel and coil and cylinder! i at the door of knowledge stood, ye were the key which should that door for me unlock. your wards, i ween, have many a cunning maze but yet the bolts ye cannot, cannot raise inscrutable in noon-day's blaze nature lets no one tear the veil away and what herself she does not choose unask'd before your soul to lay you shall not wrest from her by levers and screws. from faust --- On Mon, 8/3/10, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > From: John Carl <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [MD] continental and analytic philosophy > To: [email protected] > Received: Monday, 8 March, 2010, 4:23 AM > gav, > > I agree completely. And I'd concur by pointing to the > value in the * > Varieties* of Experience - religious, and otherwise. > It is diversity which > leads to realization of what is good. Sticking with > one conceptualization > is what blinds the man to the elephant. > > "But James's own robust faith was that the very caprices of > the spirit are > the opportunity for the building up of the highest > forms of the spiritual > life; that the unconventional and the individual in > religious experience > are the means whereby the truth of a superhuman world may > become most > manifest. > > It is the spirit of the frontiersman, of the gold seeker, > or the home > builder, transferred to the metaphysical and to the > religious realm. > > Experience alone can guide us towards the place where these > things are; > hence you indeed need experience You can only win > your way on the frontier > in case you are willing to live there. > > Be, therefore, concrete, be fearless, be > exerimental. But above all, let > not your abstract conceptions, even if you call them > scientific, pretend to > set any limits to the richness of spiritual grace, to the > glories of > spiritual possession, that, in case you are duly favored, > your personal > experience may reveal to you. James reckons that the > tribulations with > which abstract scientific theories have beset our present > age are not to be > compared with the glory that perchance shall be, if only we > open our eyes to > what experience itself has to reveal to us." > > William James and the Philosophy of Life, author unknown > (not really) > 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
