On March 18th 2014, John Carl mentioned his meeting with the one and only Hilary Putnam:
"I took it as a very positive sign when, in Feb. of 07 I was meeting with Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam about Hilary's forthcoming volume in the Library of Living Philosophers, and gracious as he always is, Hilary asked "what are *you* working on?" I said "a book on Royce," and his face lit up as he said "I *love* Royce." Hilary Putnam, the defender of Realism, convert to the philosophies of James and Dewey from the narrow straits of linguistic philosophy, *loves*Royce? That can only be a good sign." Ant McWatt comments: John, I have recently finished Dave Buchanan's MA Thesis on William James which does refer to Royce, here and there. Now, if I read Dave corrrectly, it seems to me that Royce has the same sort of idea of the Absolute as F.H. Bradley ie. some sort of Hegelian Absolute. I note, from Dave's thesis, that Royce corresponded with William James for about 20 years and, despite their generally polite attitude towards each other, James seemed rather frustrated that philosophers such as Royce and Bradley had this Platonic arrogance (if you like) that everything must be defined in some way. So out goes Dynamic Quality straight away and in comes in all those old SOM problems (that the MOQ is designed to avoid)! For instance, Royce's "Argument from Error" strikes me as rather phoney; by discounting mysticism, it has to bring in all the old Realist bugbears such as Correspondence theory between a subjective mind and some sort of "objective" reality. I think it would have been better for Royce to follow Pirsig's (more pragmatic) line of thought that ideas of things differ in value depending on context and knowledge at one given time i.e. this notion of finding an absolute truth about anything - in the MOQ at least - is "kicked out of touch". John Carl continued: from the Preface to *Time, Will and Purpose; Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce* by Randall Auxier Randy is mainly a Jamesian and a breath of fresh air since my limited experience with W. James scholars has been very poor. But in Randy I've found a great mind, open to dialogue on the big ideas. Also he's a fan of Pirsig and teaches him in his classes at Carbondale - THE center for students of American Philosophers, I have learned. We have had a lot of fruitful back and forth with what he knows of James and Royce and what I know of Pirsig and I'd like to invite him to join this discussion where he would be exposed to a wider range of expertise than dilettante moi can provide but unfortunately, he's also a church-going Methodist and I'm afraid he'd just be subjected to the same inane, anti-theistic vilification I have experienced here. Ant McWatt comments: Maybe, it's about time the church goers got back some of their own "Christian" treatment. And it isn't as if Dave Buchanan is putting you on a bonfire (or ducking you in the nearest pond) like those dear old ladies the Puritans used to harass... not such a long time ago. If you don't like the intellectual heat here then, no doubt, the Methodists will still welcome you with open - if rather "safe" - arms. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/?no-ist John Carl continued: Plus [Randy] is pretty busy. That's probably the biggest problem we have around here - truly high quality people don't have much time to chat about it; they just get on with their lives. Ant McWatt comments: Or maybe John, they are simply too... what's the technical term I am searching for... chicken? . 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
