Marsha said to dmb:
And the Eastern texts (Buddhist & Vedic) that James read and reread early in a
most difficult period in his life had a profound influence on his thinking.
This investigation is documented in his biography 'William James: In the
Maelstrom of American Modernism' by Robert D. Richardson (pp. 119 &126):
dmb says:
Richardson is an excellent intellectual biographer. He not only read everything
James ever wrote, including personal letters, he also read everything that
James read. (I used him extensively in my thesis.) Richardson also wrote a big
fat biography of Emerson, James's godfather. Emerson was also heavily
influenced by Eastern thinking. (Pirsig brought a copy at Emerson's home,
signed it and sent it to me as a gift.)
But more to the point. If James's central ideas, the one's that Pirsig
identifies with, are so heavily influenced by Buddhism, why do you try to use
Buddhism against James? Wouldn't this fact only make it all the more likely
that he'd be similar to Pirisg. Aren't they both American pragmatists with a
big Zen influence? Doesn't just make sense that you should give a bunny's butt
what he thinks?
Being a James hater just doesn't make any sense to me. I know of at least two
different scholars who describe the Buddha himself as a radical empiricist,
which is exactly what James, Dewey and Pirsig call themselves. Why embrace some
and reject the others? It's silly.
Are you suggesting that James was not an original thinker in his own right? Is
that your point? No serious person could believe that. Just ask Richardson.
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
